College debtors definitely have a friend in President Biden. So far, his administration has approved $25 billion in loan forgiveness. In addition, it paused student borrowers’ monthly payment obligations until the end of 2022. More relief is on the way. President Biden announced loan cancelation of up to $20,000 per student borrower. The Congressional Budget Office predicts the program will cost …
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines snafu as “a situation marked by errors or confusion.” The word is an acronym for “Situation Normal, All Fouled (or Fucked) Up.” Earlier this month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a report confirming what we already knew: the federal student program is all f-cked up. Unfortunately, the CFPB’s publication is titled Supervisory Highlights …
The Department of Education announced steps that will bring borrowers closer to public service loan and income-driven repayment (IDR) forgiveness by addressing historical failures in the administration of the federal student loan programs. Federal Student Aid (FSA) estimates that these changes will result in immediate debt cancellation for at least 40,000 borrowers under the Public …
Question: Dear Steve, I took a federal student loan for grad school in 1975. My Social Security now is garnisheed. Since 1993 loan collection has taken $35,000 from me, and not one cent has been applied to the loan amount only to interest. Is it legal not to put payments on to loan principal? Do …
Everyone knows the story about the hapless motorist who gets lost in rural Maine. When he finds a farmer and asks for directions, the farmer says, “You can’t get there from here.” The U.S. Department of Education must be staffed by Maine farmers. DOE has made it almost impossible for student-loan debtors to benefit from …
Congress has been dropping “helicopter money” into the national economy–adding significantly to the national debt, which now exceeds $25 trillion. That’s a lot of money for our grandchildren to pay back. My own grandkids are ambivalent about this situation. My four-year-old says he thinks he can do it if his dad will increase his allowance, …
The Department of Education under Betsy DeVos seems to be broken when it comes to overseeing student loan programs. Deep issues are preventing debtors from getting access to programs and forgiveness under the law. The biggest broken programs are Public Service Loan Forgiveness, Borrower Defense to Repayment, Closed School Discharges, and now a new class-action …
Here is another bankruptcy case from 2003 where the Court determined the fact someone could enroll or was on an Income Driven Repayment (IDR) plan was not a prevention to allowing a discharge of the federal student loans in bankruptcy. The Court records show the Judge said: “The ICRP is Only One Factor for a …