News Clips

“Even if you were a hard-nosed accountant who only cared about collecting money for taxpayers, it makes no sense to try and collect a loan by driving borrowers into poverty and preventing them from getting back on their feet,” Education Department Undersecretary James Kvaal said in his opening remarks during a virtual panel held by the Student Borrower Protection Center.

Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, makes the case that clawbacks violate consumer-protection laws, particularly those forbidding unfair lending and debt collection practices, and he’s been eager to find the right case to test his theories. “You have this other body of rights and protections,” he says. “And they’re stronger in many ways.”

“Congress is having a lot of challenges on getting bipartisan consensus on a lot of reforms,” Persis Yu, policy director and managing counsel at the advocacy group Student Borrower Protection Center said. “The political system, as it is, is unlikely to bring about a lot of these reforms through Congress with the state that it is in right now. The Department has a lot of room to make improvements.”