Federal watchdog issues scathing report on ed department’s handling of student loans

2019 STUDENT DEBT IS NOW 1.5 TRILLION DOLLARS

HISTORY – HOW DID WE GET HERE

Why did the U.S. get into the college loan business in the first place?  Tax Dollars, came from the people, to be spent for the people to protect the  welfare of the United States.

To Protect the Welfare of the United States.

In 1957 the Russians launched Sputnik. Student loans tied to help the U.S. compete technologically and scientifically with the Soviet Union.
President Dwight Eisenhower heeded calls to improve science and technical education by establishing a low-interest college-loan program through the National Defense Education Act of 1958 – with loan dollars coming straight from the government.

That name comes from the original name back in the ’70s, Student Loan Marketing Association. Sallie Mae (official name: SLM Corporation) was born as a government-sponsored enterprise.

PRIVATIZED PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

Rethuglican Gorden Gecko greed is good  wanted all that loan sharking revenue from public money put in their pocket.

It was no longer about the welfare of the United States it is now all about Gorden Gecko greed is good profit taking for the public sector. That is why politicians allow it to continue. It’s great for wall street GGs they want their returns made from enslaving the American Public.

Go to College – Get a Loan – JUST DON’T GO!

GET VOCATIONAL TRAINING IN HIGH SCHOOL!!

‘I don’t want to be the forbearer of bad news, but forbearance actually increases your interest over time. An income-based repayment plan would be more fiscally responsible.’
—Comedian John Hodgman on his fictional student-loan game show

THIS SPINS OFF TO BECOME NAVIENT  press release

2014 The president and CEO of Sallie Mae BECAME Navient’s CEO. Sallie Mae  kept the company’s consumer banking operations, and new private student loans will originate from and be serviced by a private corporation.
Navient originates federally guaranteed student loans. It will also service private student loans that Sallie Mae currently holds.

Navient CEO Jack Remondi, Warren audited by the Department of Education. The program includes multiple loan types and over 50 different repayment statuses. It is safe to say that the federal student loan program is the most complex consumer loan program in the world.

PROBLEM SOLVED: WHAT YOU CAN DO

IN SOLIDARITY THERE IS POWER, ORGANIZE, TAKE ACTION.

You are not a loan. https://debtcollective.org/

Join the Debt Collective to fight economic exploitation! Here you can dispute your debts, challenge creditors, and join others to organize campaigns, direct actions, and financial disobedience. Together we can build a new economy where no one has to go into debt to meet their basic needs.

  • Dispute Errors on Your Credit Report
  • Dispute Your Wages Being Taken
  • Dispute Any Debt in Collections (except a student loan) that has been sent to collections. Make them prove it! (All debt types except private student loans)

A bailout of the people by the people

Student debt has surpassed $1.5 trillion partly because it is one of the most protected forms of debt by federal law. Student debtors can rarely discharge their loans in bankruptcy and lenders have rights to garnish wages and social security payments. The vast majority of student loans have these federal guarantees. We cannot buy these loans because there is no secondary market. However, we believe it may be possible to buy private tuition debt of some sort that is not guaranteed by the federal government.

 CALL YOUR STATE AG Attorney General

The five states suing Navient — Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, California and Mississippi for breaking their laws regarding consumer protection.

A 2017 study by the Government Accountability Office estimates that a typical borrower of a $30,000 student loan who places their loan into forbearance for three years — the maximum allowed for economic-hardship forbearance — would pay an additional $6,742 in interest on that loan.

The largest contributor to student loan defaults, however, is not over-borrowing. It’s not graduating. Despite the perception that student loan defaults are driven by excessive debt, in fact, two-thirds of all defaults are from those who borrowed less than $10,000. Only 4 percent of defaults are from those who borrowed more than $40,000.

Federal watchdog issues scathing report on ed department’s handling of student loans

Betsy Devos  rewarded as Head of the Department of Education  Charter School Business owner after giving  the largest campaign Trump donation.

A critical new report from the

U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General finds the department’s student loan unit failed to adequately supervise the companies it pays to manage the nation’s trillion-dollar portfolio of federal student loans.

The report also rebukes the department’s office of Federal Student Aid for rarely penalizing companies that failed to follow the rules.

Navient is a publicly traded company. The fewer customer-service agents Navient employs, the more money Navient puts in its pocket. If the Department of Education chose to require all servicers to discuss income-driven repayment plans with all borrowers, the Department of Education needs to redo its contract with Navient.

The department’s own inspector general says student loan companies aren’t following the rules, and that the government isn’t doing enough to hold them accountable.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/14/694477547/federal-watchdog-issues-scathing-report-on-ed-departments-handling-of-student-lo

Failures by the servicers, among them, not telling borrowers about all of their repayment options, or miscalculating what borrowers should have to pay through an income-driven repayment plan.

According to the review, two loan servicing companies,

Navient and the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, better known as FedLoan, repeatedly placed borrowers into costly forbearance without offering them other, more beneficial options.

SAY NO TO FORBEARANCE
REMEMBER: IT’S A BEAR
THAT WILL EAT YOU FOR LIFE

Instead of safeguarding borrowers’ interests, the report says, FSA’s inconsistent oversight allowed these companies, known as loan servicers, to potentially hurt borrowers and pocket government dollars that should have been refunded because servicers weren’t meeting federal requirements.

“By not holding servicers accountable,” the report says, “FSA could give its servicers the impression that it is not concerned with servicer noncompliance with Federal loan servicing requirements, including protecting borrowers’ rights.”
“It’s hard to look at this as anything other than completely damning,” says Seth Frotman, a consumer advocate and former government, student loan watchdog who is now executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center.

the “unsophisticated consumer” doesn’t generally understand his or her legal rights.

“This is the most damaging in a long line of investigations, audits, and reports that show the Department of Education is asleep at the switch when it is responsible for over a trillion dollars of student loan debt.”

And remember, the people around Trump (and presumably the person who took the picture) are probably paying customers. Trump benefits personally from their membership dues, and they get access to the president of the United States.

  • Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach, 2/16/19 omelette bar
  • Millions of borrowers are suffering under the weight of student debt. It’s time to take a stand.
  • Protect yourself from Betsy Devos. These defaults will destroy their credit and jeopardize their financial future. It may even cost them their job.

PROTECT BORROWERS blog It’s Time to Fight Back
By Seth Frotman | November 28, 2018
Seth Frotman is the Executive Director of the Student Borrower Protection Center. He previously served as Assistant Director and Student Loan Ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he led a government-wide effort to crack down on abuses by the student loan industry and protect borrowers.

TAKE DOWN NAVIENT

John Oliver 15 million one-time giveaway in television show history

Corruption and sleaziness in the under-regulated industry were disturbing and grim. At one point, he had footage of a Debt Buyers Association conference that featured panelists sneering at how the “unsophisticated consumer” doesn’t generally understand his or her legal rights.

In what he called “the largest one-time giveaway in television show history,” he forgave some $15 million in medical debt for some 9,000 Texans.

The stunt came at the end of his brilliantly scathing 20-minute takedown of the debt-buying industry.

For $50, he set up a debt-buying company and named it Central Asset Recovery Professionals, or CARP, “after a bottom-feeding fish,” he explained. Then he made himself the chairman of the board, and bought a portfolio of nearly $15 million in debt for $60,000. Rather than ruthlessly harass the people who owed the money — “I could legally have CARP take possession of that debt and have employees start calling people, turning their lives upside down over medical debt” — he said he was forgiving it all.

the five states suing Navient — Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, California and Mississippi — say the behavior breaks their laws regarding consumer protection.Navient Corp., the nation’s third-largest student loan servicing company.

MORE ARTICLES

The Department of Justice and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. accused Sallie Mae and its loan unit, now called Navient, of intentionally violating the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act by overcharging active-duty troops beginning in 2005