On April 18, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) published a blog post, scrutinizing the practice of withholding transcripts from students with delinquent accounts and who are attending an institute of higher education.
The practice of withholding transcripts as a collections tactic has never been popular with regulators or consumer advocates. As
On April 14, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) published a report titled Student Loan Borrowers Potentially At-Risk when Payment Suspension Ends. The publication uses data from the CFPB’s Consumer Credit Panel to identify which types of borrowers may struggle to make their scheduled loan payments based on five potential risk factors:
On April 12, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a blog post titled “Busting myths about bankruptcy and private student loans.” In the blog post, the CFPB argues that certain private education loans can be discharged in bankruptcy. Specifically, the CFPB argues that the following private student loans can be discharged without
On January 13, a coalition of 39 state attorneys general — led by AGs from Pennsylvania, Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, and California — reached a settlement with student loan servicer Navient over allegedly unfair, deceptive, and abusive student loan origination and servicing practices. The $1.8 billion settlement will undoubtedly draw eyes, but perhaps just as important
In late September, the Department of Justice (DOJ) entered into two consent orders to resolve allegations related to violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). The past year has seen an uptick in regulatory scrutiny centered on military consumer protection laws. The DOJ’s recent consent orders highlight this trend.
The SCRA provides various legal
The Department of Education (Department) has announced that individuals who have a total and permanent disability (TPD) will have their unpaid student loans automatically discharged without having to file any paperwork. The change will affect 323,000 borrowers and result in a discharge of more than $5.8 billion in unpaid loan balances.
Pursuant to regulations enacted
On July 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that private student loans are not explicitly exempt from a debtor’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy discharge.
In Homadian, the borrower, after graduating from Emerson College, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2007 and obtained a discharge in 2009. The discharge order did
In Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau v. Nat’l Collegiate Master Student Loan Trust, the District of Delaware dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), alleging that a group of trusts that hold more than 800,000 private student loans engaged in unfair and deceptive practices. The District Court held that the CFPB’s
The U.S. Department of Education (Department) recently forgave nearly $1 billion in student loan debt for those who were defrauded by their schools into taking out loans. The relief was granted under the Borrower Defense to Repayment program and will impact roughly 72,000 individuals. The loan forgiveness only applies to those student loan borrowers who
The Sixth Circuit recently confirmed student loan servicers, who begin servicing debts after default and resale, are not liable to borrowers under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) because the servicers are not acting as “debt collectors.”
On March 25, in Willison v. Nelnet, Inc., the Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for student
