March 2018

As newspaper articles, academic studies, and politicians’ speeches have repeated, statistics suggest that a student loan crisis may be building. The share of students graduating with more than $50,000 in student loan debt has more than tripled since 2000, increasing from 5% in 2000 to 17% in 2014. As a result, this group of “large-balance

Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) recently introduced a resolution to overturn guidance promulgated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2013. The resolution seeks to invalidate the Bureau’s guidance under the Congressional Review Act, the same statute that permitted Congress to overturn the arbitration rule. 

The guidance at issue is the CFPB’s highly

On June 9, 2017, under the leadership of its former director, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a modified civil investigative demand, or “CID,” containing the following Notification of Purpose: 

The purpose of this investigation is to determine whether a [sic] student-loan servicers or other persons, in connection with

While Washington debates various reforms to the federal government’s student loan framework, and other states adopt borrowers’ bills of rights to the consternation of the United States Department of Education, other proposals for dealing with the student debt crisis have cropped up in legislatures across the country. In recent weeks, two

On March 20, Naples Hotel Group LLC removed a putative Fair Credit Reporting Act class action to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. The complaint, originally filed February 13 in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in Orange County, Florida, alleges that Naples improperly obtained and used consumer reports about prospective and

On March 13, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed bill HB 1298, the Washington Fair Chance Act (“WFCA”), which will make it unlawful for an employer to include any question on any application for employment, inquire either orally or in writing, receive information through a criminal history background check, or otherwise obtain information about an applicant’s

As of March 23, at least 19 states hold or revoke the state-issued licenses of teachers and/or other professionals if the borrower is in default on their student loans. These jurisdictions span the country, both ideologically and geographically:

On March 12, Judge Eldon E. Fallon of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana tossed a plaintiff’s putative class action lawsuit against the American Heart Association (“AHA”), Anthem Foundation, Inc., and Anthem, Inc. under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act relating to text messages sent to a consumer following her

Like a bevy of other jurisdictions, the District of Columbia has established a “borrower’s bill of rights” which creates minimum standards for timely processing, correction of errors, and communication for servicers of federal student loans. 

In response to this state-level action, the U.S. Department of Education recently argued that all such regulations are

Largely rejecting the Trump Administration’s proposals regarding student lending championed by Betsy DeVos, Secretary of the Department of Education, the $1.3 trillion budget deal announced by Congressional negotiators on March 21 includes a number of provisions that may aid students:

  • The budget increases the Pell Grant award by $175 per student, bringing maximum Pell Grants