Boston Student Loan Lawyer

Law Office of Adam S. Minsky

New Student Loan Protections Are Coming

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Policy & Reform

The legal landscape of student loan servicing and for-profit schools is a bit like the Wild Wild West right now. There aren’t a whole lot of rules and oversight, and unfair and deceptive practices towards student loan borrowers are fairly widespread. And in our federal legal system, where we have parallel government structures at the federal and the state level, we are seeing a major divergence in prioritizing student loan borrower protections.

One the one hand, the federal government has been actively undermining the few student loan protections that had already existed. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded Obama-era guidance that was intended to incentivize better treatment of student loan borrowers by servicers, and her administration has been trying to gut student loan forgiveness protections available to people who were defrauded by their schools. At the same time, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has, under new leadership, effectively decimated its student loan oversight unit. Suffice it to say, right now the federal government is not doing much of anything to protect student loan borrowers.

But at the same, states are stepping in. State attorney general’s office are playing a big role in advocating for student loan borrowers by bringing lawsuits against servicers such as Navient and FedLoan Servicing. And state legislatures have also been stepping up and trying to pass new legislation that offers protections for borrowers at the state level. A handful of states have already passed state-level “bills of rights” specific to student loan borrowers. And more may be coming.

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Student Loan Legislation Update

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Policy & Reform Private Student Loans

There is quite a lot going on right now when it comes to student loans. It seems that every month there’s a new bill or a new rule that could significantly impact student loan borrowers. But keeping track of it all can be a bit overwhelming.

First, a very brief overview of how law-making works. Our legal and political system is multi-layered and may seem complicated, but I’ll break it down for you:

  • Legislation – or a proposal for a new law – must be passed by a law-making body like Congress (at the federal level) or a state legislature (at the state level). Congress, and most state legislatures, have two chambers – the House and the Senate – and legislation must pass both chambers, and be signed by the President (or a Governor) to become law.
  • Regulations (also simply called rules) can be created by executive agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Education. Agencies have broad powers to issue new rules or regulations under existing statutes, which can dramatically impact programs that were already created by previous legislation. When agencies create new rules or regulations, they have to follow a formal process before they can go into effect, but they do not typically require approval by Congress (or an equivalent state legislature).

So, with the above in mind, here’s my overview of the most important developments during the last few weeks.Read More

Here’s a List of Rollbacks to Student Loan Protections

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Policy & Reform

The Trump/DeVos administration has been busy during the past 18 months, rolling back significant protections for student loan borrowers and their families. Just in the past couple of weeks, there have been two new developments that curtail regulation of predatory schools, lenders, servicers, and debt collectors.

First, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), now under the leadership of Trump appointee Mick Mulvaney, effectively eliminated its student loan division by rolling it into a different department that has no investigatory or enforcement power. Previously, the CFPB’s student loan division had issued comprehensive, data-driven reports on the atrocious state of federal student loan servicing. It had also brought numerous enforcement actions and filed several lawsuits against predatory companies, including Navient, returning upwards of $750 million to student loan borrowers and other consumers harmed by unfair or harmful business practices. It looks like we can no longer count on the CFPB to do this work. Read More

Student Loan Law End-of-Year Review

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Policy & Reform Private Student Loans Taxes

Well, 2017 has been quite an explosive year, hasn’t it? And there’s been a lot going on in the world of student loan law – so much, in fact, that it can be a bit overwhelming to keep everything straight. So as we wrap up this year, here’s an overview of what went down for student loan borrowers, and some hints of what’s to come in 2018.Read More

Student Loan News Summary – June 2017

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Loan Forgiveness Private Student Loans

Happy summer, everyone. With all the big national news going on lately, there’s a lot of developments in student loan law and policy that are flying a bit under the radar. Let’s bring everyone up to speed.

Credit Report Changes Will Help Student Loan Borrowers Who’ve Been Sued

Starting July 1, the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) will no longer report civil judgments on people’s credit reports. There have been ongoing concerns about credit reporting errors for judgments, since a judgment is often not linked to a person’s social security number. This is a significant change that will have a direct, positive impact on borrowers who have been sued by their student loan lenders.Read More

Student Loan News Roundup: April 2017

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn

There’s a lot going on right now in student loan news. Let’s get right to it.

New York State Will Offer Free College – With a Catch

New York is poised to become the first state in the country to offer free college tuition to its residents. Families who make $125,000 or less would be eligible for tuition-free college at all SUNY and CUNY campuses. This has the potential to benefit up to a million families. But there’s a catch – students who benefit from this initiative will have to live and work in New York for several years after graduating. If they don’t, the “free” tuition will be converted into loans that must be repaid. This has some borrower advocates concerned.Read More

Senate Grills the Nominee to Oversee Student Loan System

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Policy & Reform

Yesterday, Congress held a confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, who is the nominee to head the U.S. Dept. of Education under the incoming Trump administration. If confirmed, DeVos would oversee the entire federal student loan disbursement, servicing, and collections system, which currently totals over $1.3 trillion and involves over 40 million individual student loan borrowers.

How will DeVos handle the student loan system? Here’s what we learned from the hearing (spoiler alert – not much): Read More

End-of-the-Year Student Loan News Roundup

| Articles Current Events Default For-Profit Colleges Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Policy & Reform Private Student Loans

2016 has been a big year in student loan law. We saw the release of Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE), a new income-driven repayment plan for federal student loans, although its rollout and implementation were a bit of a mess. We saw a continued federal crackdown on predatory for-profit schools which resulted in the collapse of ITT Technical Institute. The Obama administration issued final rules on student loan forgiveness and debt relief for students who were defrauded by their colleges and universities. And finally, Donald Trump was elected to be the next President, leading to a great deal of uncertainty about the direction of student loan programs.

There’s never a dull moment when it comes to student loan issues, and as the year comes to a close, there’s still a lot going on. Here are some highlights. Read More

4 Student Loan Borrower Groups Most At Risk Post-Election

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Policy & Reform

mayer-betsydevostrumpThere’s been a lot of uncertainty since the election regarding what the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress may have in mind for student loan borrowers. During the past few weeks, I’ve been carefully watching public statements, investigating proposed appointments, and speaking with other advocates and experts. While everything at this point is still speculation, I think we’re beginning to see some clues as to where student loan reform may be going in the next few years, and who may be most at risk from potential negative consequences.Read More

7 Student Loan Protections to be Thankful For

| Articles Current Events Default For-Profit Colleges Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Policy & Reform

turkeyIt’s been two weeks since the election, and there’s still much uncertainty about what the consequences of the election will be for student loan borrowers. While Hillary Clinton had mapped out a series of student loan reform proposals, Donald Trump has been far less specific about how he plans to deal with the $1.4 trillion in outstanding student debt.

In this time of uncertainty, and in keeping with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I think it’s a good time to take stock of what we have and be grateful. If you follow this blog, you know that I frequently write about problems and deficiencies with the the student loan system. And for good reason – student loans are a mess, with inefficient servicing, damaging debt collection, and the potential for life-altering negative consequences for borrowers. There’s a lot to be angry about, and a lot that should change.

But, there are also good elements of the student loan system – programs and laws that keep people in good standing, allow them to repay their loans fairly, and protect them from abuses. As we press forward into this period of change and uncertainty, we may have to do some hard work to preserve what we have.Read More