After four years of leading the fight to protect student loan borrowers, 2021 has seen states across the country continue to take steps to deliver protections and hold companies harming borrowers accountable.
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This issue brief, from the SPBC and the Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, provides an overview of how California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation and the California legislature can protect borrowers from predatory income share agreements.
California has long been a leader in student borrower protection. A new memo outlines how policymakers and law enforcement in the Golden State can protect borrowers from predatory income share agreements.
The upheaval of the past two years may mean your personal circumstances and financial life look entirely different today. If you’re anxious about making payments again, you’ve got plenty of options — but a limited window to thoroughly evaluate them.
Two former students, with the support of the SBPC, filed lawsuits against a predatory online bootcamp scheme and a nationwide provider of ISAs, alleging widespread deceptive practices, illegal lending, and unlawful collection of student loans.
Former students filed lawsuits against Top Applicant (also known as “Elevate”), a predatory online bootcamp, and Leif, a nationwide ISA provider. Alongside this, SBPC referred Leif to the CFPB. SBPC referred the ISA company to the CFPB.
With daily news headlines focusing on the status and future of federal student loans — including recent announcements that hundreds of thousands of borrowers will have their debts wiped out — don’t feel alone if you’re confused as to whether what you’re hearing when you’re offered help with your loans is legitimate.
The former students allege they were misled to think they were applying for jobs and misled on the terms of the ISAs in order to join a 10-week online tech sales bootcamp for “sales development representatives.” But the lawsuits allege that the students did not learn much while being tracked into entry-level jobs that didn’t need training — and then faced harassment to pay back high debts
In recent days, the White House has drawn widespread blowback as advocates and progressives implore the administration to push back, or forego entirely, a February date to lift a pandemic forbearance on student loan payments.
The SBPC, as part of the Student Loan Law Initiative, released a report, Revisiting Debt Relief, featuring contributions from leading student loan experts scoring the Biden administration’s efforts to deliver student debt relief in its first year.
The SBPC, as part of SLLI, released a report featuring contributions from leading student loan experts and advocates examining the Biden Administration’s progress on its promise to deliver student relief, and offering a roadmap for what can be done in the year ahead to help borrowers.
In light of the planned termination of the student loan payment pause and these new economic data, SBPC Executive Director Mike Pierce released the following statement.
The SBPC is announcing new additions to the organization’s Advisory Board. The new slate of members are nationally recognized policymakers, advocates, and experts who bring decades of consumer financial protection, higher education, and social justice expertise to support the SBPC’s mission to end the student debt crisis.
Today, the Student Borrower Protection Center sent a letter to President Biden alongside 207 other organizations (including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Federation of Teachers, and the NAACP) calling for the pause to be extended.
The CFPB announced that it finalized a rule to facilitate the financial services industry’s transition away from LIBOR. In response, SBPC Head of Investigations and Senior Policy Advisor Ben Kaufman issued the following statement.
In a letter to President Biden, the SBPC and over 200 organizations call on the administration to extend the pause on student loan payments scheduled to resume for millions of borrowers on January 31, 2022.
More than 200 organizations called on President Biden to delay restarting federal student loan payments for tens of millions of borrowers in light of the new omicron variant hampering the economy, upcoming loan transfers affecting millions of borrowers, and new data showing that borrowers are not financially prepared to restart payments.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic the federal government has allowed for millions of student loan payments to be paused, but in a few short months those repayments will resume. Now, over 200 organizations are urging President Biden to extend the pause yet again.
On Thursday, over 200 organizations, led by the Student Borrower Protection Center, sent yet another letter to Biden calling on him to extend the pause until he fulfills his campaign promises of fixing loan forgiveness programs and cancelling student debt.
The affirmed its authority to supervise large student loan servicers and stated that it “has been and will continue to conduct supervisory examinations” of large student loan servicers.