Tag Archives: Student Loans

Ex-student loan official who resigned from CFPB in protest launches new watchdog group

by Jillian Berman, Marketwatch

Seth Frotman, who resigned in protest earlier this year from his position as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s student loan ombudsman, announced Wednesday that he’s launching a new organization aimed at tackling the nation’s student loan problem. Read More ›

Trump administration moves to make it harder for defrauded students to erase debt

by Laura Meckler, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, Washington Post

The package is a win for colleges, particularly for-profit ventures. It’s a defeat for consumer advocates who favor a more aggressive posture against colleges that they say routinely take advantage of veterans and older students. Read More ›

CFC supports equal protection for private student loan holders (SB 16)

If a borrower defaults on a private student loan, a creditor can garnish up to 25% of that borrower’s income. If a borrower defaults on a federal student loan, the maximum garnishment is 15%. SB 16 (Wieckowski) will ensure that the maximum garnishment is the same for … Read More ›

Former Corinthian College Students Sue To Have Private Loans Discharged

by Ashlee Kieler, Consumerist

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, against Turnstile Capital Management, LLC, Balboa Student Loan Trust, and University Accounting Service, LLC seeks to provide California students defrauded by the for-profit college chain with full debt relief. Read More ›

Not So Gainfully Employed

by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed

Thoughtful young African American adult

Students who enroll in certificate, associate and bachelor’s programs at for-profit colleges and universities generally see a decline in earnings (and typically greater debt) five or six years after attendance, compared to their earnings before enrollment, according to a study released Monday. Read More ›

Corinthian Colleges Students Unlikely To See $1.2 Billion Judgment

by Roxana Kopetman and Mark Muckenfuss, Orange County Register

Experts said recovery of the judgment is unlikely. And some students and their advocates said they haven’t yet gotten what they really need: release from school-loan debts. In California, 13,000 students were attending Corinthian schools when the doors shut. … The bankrupt Corinthian closed its for-profit schools last year amid accusations that the chain falsified grades, attendance and job-placement rates. Students complained of deceitful practices that often targeted low-income students by promising a lot but offering very little. Read More ›

Appeals Court Shuts Down For-Profit College Industry’s Effort To Avoid Accountability

by Chris Morran, Consumerist

“It would be strange for Congress to loan out money to train students for jobs that were insufficiently remunerative to permit the students to repay their loans,” concluded the appeals panel. “And it would be a perverse system that, by design, wasted taxpayer money in order to impose crippling, credit-destroying debt on lower-income students and graduates.” Read More ›

Consumer Laws Taking Effect In 2016

2015-2016

The following consumer-related legislation was signed into law in 2015 and will take effect January 1, 2016, except as noted. Read More ›

Supreme Court Rejects Class-Action Suit Against DirecTV

by Robert Barnes, Washington Post

“These decisions have predictably resulted in the deprivation of consumers’ rights to seek redress for losses, and turning the coin, they have insulated powerful economic interests from liability for violations of consumer protection laws,” wrote [dissenting Justice Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. … “It has become routine, in a large part due to this court’s decisions, for powerful economic enterprises to write into their form contracts with consumers and employees no class-action arbitration clauses … further degrading the rights of consumers and further insulating already powerful economic entities.” Read More ›

Corinthian College Students Sort Through Confusion, Bureaucracy After Company’s Fall

by Katy Murphy, Contra Costa Times

Young African-American man

The Department of Education created a special claim form for students who as far back as 2010 attended Heald programs it found to have inflated job-placement numbers – about 80 percent of all of the chain’s offerings. Roughly 6,100 such claims had been filed as of mid-October compared with only a handful in the past. … The department has estimated that roughly 40,000 former Heald students alone were defrauded because of their programs’ phony job placement rates and are eligible for the relief. Read More ›

More Trouble For ITT Education Services: Agency Restricts For-Profit’s Use Of Federal Student Aid

by Ashlee Kieler, Consumerist

The new restrictions from the Dept. of Education are just the latest regulatory and legal issue for ITT Educational Services. Last month, the company revealed that the Department of Justice was looking into whether the company defrauded the federal government. … Back in May, the SEC filed fraud charges against current and former executives with the company for their part in concealing problems with company-run student loan programs. … The company has faced actions from several states, including the suspension of GI Bill Eligibility in the state of California in May of this year. Read More ›

For-Profit Colleges Accused Of Fraud Still Receive U.S. Funds

by Patricia Cohen, The New York Times

Young African-American man

For-profit schools enroll about 12 percent of the nation’s college students, yet they account for nearly half of student loan defaults. … Kaplan [Career Institute’s] schools, including its online California law school, where only one in five students graduates, received $776.3 million worth of federal student loans and grants last year. Because it lacks bar association accreditation, most graduates outside California are not allowed to take a bar exam. Read More ›

It May Be A Long Time Before Many Corinthian Students Get Debt Relief

by Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, The Washington Post

Young African-American man

[A U.S. Education Department] team is reviewing claims where the “facts and law are clear,” such as the ones from students who attended Corinthian’s Heald Colleges in California, Hawaii and Oregon. Those schools were at the heart of a $30 million fine the Education Department levied against Corinthian in April for lying about job placement rates to students. Read More ›

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