Baylor University, a Baptist institution located in Waco, Texas, is a well-respected school. Over the years, it has risen steadily in the college ratings and now ranks among the top 100 American universities. But Baylor is expensive–tuition and fees are about $50,000 a year. Low-income students can take out federal loans, but these loans are … Read more
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness federal student loan forgiveness program was designed to attract good people into lower-paying fields that serve the public good. These fields include teachers, firefighters, law enforcement, military, low-income medical care, etc. While President Bush created the program, it was all but murdered under President Trump. As a result, people that … Read more
The FTC made the announcement below that seems to open the door for students with federal student loans to explore the possibility of applying for a Borrower Defense Loan Discharge. The Federal Trade Commission put 70 for-profit higher education institutions on notice that the agency is cracking down on any false promises they make about … Read more
A common saying when I was young (in the last century) was the old adage that lawyers are people who wish to make a lot of money but are risk-averse. That observation certainly rang true when I went to law school in the 1970s. I graduated from the University of Texas School of Law with … Read more
Parents trying to do a good thing and send their loved kids to college often blindly take out student loans. In the federal loan space, these undergraduate loans are Parent PLUS loans. The best way to think of these loans is where only one parent is financially responsible for the loan, but all the benefit … Read more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) took action recently against an income share agreement (ISA) provider for mispresenting its product and failing to comply with federal consumer financial law that governs private student loans. Better Future Forward, Inc., through its affiliated companies, provides students with money to finance their higher education, in the form of … Read more
In response to the COVID pandemic, the Department of Education allowed student-loan debtors to skip their monthly loan payments without penalty until September 30, 2021. That pause was recently extended to January 30, 2022. Thanks to the Department’s forbearance, millions of college-loan borrowers are enjoying a respite from making loan payments, knowing that DOE will … Read more
On August 4, 2021, SoFi published an article called “Is There a Statute of Limitations on Debt?” (https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/statute-of-limitations-on-debt/). Most would agree that the simple answer is yes because they assume the author is actually referring to lawsuits on debt, not the debt itself. For example, as correctly pointed out in the article, the expiration of … Read more
Tamara Parvizi, age 51, sought to discharge $653,743 in student-loan debt in a Massachusetts bankruptcy court. That’s a lot of debt–just shy of two-thirds of a million dollars. For 15 years, Parvizi took out student loans to pursue several degrees, and she became fluent in at least four languages. Nevertheless, Parvizi never made a single … Read more
Is this the year of Jubilee? Is this the year that distressed student-loan debtors finally get to shake off mountainous debt in the bankruptcy courts? Maybe. This week, Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, filed a bill that would allow college-loan debtors to discharge their federal student loans … Read more
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA®, is a form students can fill out each school year to apply for grants, work-study, or federal student loans from the government for higher education pursuits. By not filling it out, or missing the FAFSA deadline, students may not receive financial aid that could help them … Read more
Years ago, I was strolling along a lakeside hiking trail in a Dallas-area park. As I was walking across a wooden bridge, I looked down to see a ball of wriggling snakes below me. It was a big cluster–about the size of a beachball. I didn’t stick around long enough to determine whether the snakes … Read more
Martha Standish took out student loans when she was in her late 40s to get an undergraduate degree in accounting. Later she took out a Parent Plus Loan to help her daughter with college expenses. Eleven years after graduating, Standish filed an adversary proceeding in a Kansas bankruptcy court seeking to discharge about $30,000 in … Read more
Looking for the right place to pay off loans? Unfortunately, there’s no blinking neon sign for borrowers to “Repay Loans Here.” Instead, borrowers may have to go old school, and make a phone call to meet their new best friend—the student loan servicer. It all starts with contacting the Federal Student Aid Information Center to … Read more
Yesterday I wrote about a 15-year-old that took out federal student loans and got a chance to learn all about the Claim of Infancy issue. Apparently, while you need to be 18 to enter a legal contract and 21 to buy and consume alcohol, you only need to have a pulse and breath in the … Read more