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The SBPC and the National Consumer Law Center wrote to the Department of Education to call for commercial FFELP borrowers to get desperately needed relief during COVID and for the Department to rectify past and present wrongs that have imposed historic hardship on these borrowers.

Nationally, student loan debt is at crisis level. The share of students behind on loan payments equals the share of homeowners in default at the peak of the housing crisis. What’s the best way to help students struggling under a huge debt burden?

Any comprehensive analysis and regulatory prioritization grounded in removing barriers to societal equity must acknowledge the racially disparate effects of the student debt crisis and the decades-long failure to effectively regulate the student loan industry.

Debt cancellation would grow the economy by hundreds of billions of dollars each year, creating the more prosperous future Americans hope to see when the health crisis is over. Biden’s economic recovery plan aims to put people back to work; debt cancellation would add up to 1.5 million jobs per...

Congress and the Biden administration should require colleges and universities to forgive all institutional debt as a condition of getting additional coronavirus relief funds, said the Student Borrower Protection Center.

The policies put in place by the Trump-era Education Department continue to obstruct critical law enforcement work required to clean up the market.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked financial havoc on colleges, their students and student-loan borrowers, the government has stepped in to provide billions of dollars of relief. But at least one group of students is still being left out.

Unlike federal student loans, these debts do not come with special consumer protections or guaranteed repayment options, and they are not subject to the same current payment freeze. Yet these debts can completely upend a student’s educational aspirations and hang over borrowers’ heads for years.

A new report issued this week found that several private student loan companies received substantial federal financial assistance and low-interest loans through pandemic relief programs. Some loans could ultimately be forgiven — a perk not currently extended to private student loan borrowers.

Is broad forgiveness of student loans the best way to get help to borrowers who most need it? MPR News host Kerri Miller took listener calls and talked to two consumer advocates about the student loan debt crisis.