Media Type: Blogs

A Roadmap for Fixing PSLF for Future Generations

A new memo provides a clear roadmap the Department of Education can use to remove unnecessary constraints for PSLF qualification, hold borrowers blameless for well-documented industry abuses and failures, and change ED’s own policies and procedures for overseeing the program.

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It’s Time to Bring the Shadow Student Loan Market into the Light of Consumer Protections

It’s time for Congress to afford borrowers who take on shadow student debt the same protections as everyone else.

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ED Must Build Back a Better Student Loan System, and That Means Giving Borrowers a Second Chance

For too long, the Department of Education has chosen to squeeze blood from a stone rather than change the practices and rules that keep borrowers trapped in default.

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For Servicemembers Pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness, the Fight Continues

Yesterday, a group of brave active duty servicemembers was featured sharing their firsthand accounts of student loan challenges with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” show.

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Millions of Low-Income Student Loan Borrowers Deserve Better than Another Dead End

We now know that a generation of student loan borrowers remain trapped in this broken system and that, without structural changes by ED, IDR will not offer a viable way out for these borrowers in the future.

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Policy Choices are Driving Racial Disparities in Access to Income-Driven Repayment

A new SBPC report sounds a warning that failures in the design of the IDR application process may exacerbate the unevenness of pandemic recovery along racial lines.

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Public Service Workers Who Did Everything Right are Being Blocked from Promised Loan Relief Because of Tricks and Traps

Too many public service workers with older federal loans discover they can’t get PSLF because they have the wrong type of loan, while industry and ED block these borrowers from taking steps to secure relief.

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PSLF Borrower Voices: Spotlighting Servicemembers Denied Earned Loan Forgiveness

Servicemembers across the country are continually being denied promised student loan relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program even after a decade or more of service in uniform. This fact is a national disgrace.

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IDR Aimed to Make Federal Student Loans Affordable. It Made Them Even More of a Debt Trap.

Policymakers designed a system that assumed the amount of debt borrowers take on is largely immaterial, and the result is that millions of borrowers have been left to deal with the financial and psychological ramifications of decades of runaway debt.

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Fulfilling the Promise of Income-Driven Repayment

It’s time for policymakers to weigh whether the IDR program is fulfilling its promise. And if not, it’s time to boldly rethink the design and delivery of the protections that borrowers deserve.

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