Student loan repayment problems frustrate borrowers, prompting federal response
Student loan repayment problems frustrate borrowers, prompting federal response
“If student loan companies are cutting corners or sidestepping the law, this can pose serious risks to individuals and the economy,” the CFPB said.
More than 45 million borrowers collectively owe approximately $1.6 trillion, according to the Biden administration, which tried to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for tens of millions of eligible borrowers. The Supreme Court killed the program in June.
We all know this, but it’s important to know who to blame.
It's fair to also blame Biden. He gave up the ability to further push back student loan payments for some concessions to keep the government open.
The 20k would have forgiven roughly 400 bil in loans. When that was shot down, Bidens admin kept quietly forgiven 5bil here, 8 bil there, which has now risen to 136bil and counting.
It's not the 400bil we hoped for, but 136bil forgiven is far, far more than any admin has ever done to relieve student loan debt.
That doesnt even take into account how they doubled the minimum income limits that affect how much you have to repay on an income based plan, given a complete and free exit out of default, zero interest while making payments, retoractivly approved people who should have had them forgiven, on and on. They fixed so many bullshit aspects of repaying the debt and have gotten basically zero credit for it because its complicated and not sexy like "20k!"
Read the fuck up on what good they have done and i think you'll be suprised.
And for this fiscal year, they STILL don't have a federal budget, over a quarter of the way in.
Republicans be like:
I mentioned this before, but if you're running into issues with your student loan servicer (in the USA), you should submit a complaint here: https://studentaid.gov/feedback-center/. At a minimum, my experience was that submitting the complaint was quick and easy.
Some of these student loan companies are lying to borrowers, screwing up basic financial transactions, delaying payment processing, and generally operating in bad faith and in adversarial fashion. Making complaints may not do much of anything in the immediate sense, but in theory when enough complaints get recorded, eventually it will reach a point where it can't be ignored (I know, you've got a bridge to sell me).
Plus, if it ever does come down to some kind of remedy being provided to affected borrowers, having an official complaint on file will probably help you with making a claim.
Having said that, it seems like the complaint system is overall pretty crumby. My complaint was sent directly over to the loan company's customer service folks to handle, it wasn't handled by anybody on the government side that I could tell. And no surprise, the loan company investigated itself and concluded that it had done nothing wrong. But don't let that discourage you, it's still worth it to report.
I wish I knew that three years ago. I had a Perkins loan with Heartland ECSI. At the beginning of COVID, they kept screwing up how much I owed them. I would log in a few days before payment should have been due, and it said I owed them $0. So I thought this loan was on the same thing my Stafford loans were on, where I owed no payment temporarily due to COVID.
I log in a few days later then it says I owe my normal payment + late fee and it says I am overdue. I call their customer service and I explain the situation. The lady seemed to not believe me. "No, it says you owe X amount. I would not have said 0." Given that I caught this fast enough, if I paid it now it wouldn't have affected my credit. I just paid the payment plus the small fee because I did not have the energy to fight due to dealing with the world's crisis and my own added problems at home.
The next month, I see that it says I owe nothing again. Well, maybe they finally got the student loan pause stuff figured out. Nope, same thing. Not knowing if I was just going nuts, and factoring in my intense burnout, I just paid off the whole thing. Fortunately it was not much, but enough that my savings for a down payment was wiped out. I really could have used that money but for a finance company to just screw up so badly on a simple thing I just did not want anything to do with them any more.
It's too late for that situation, but in the future take screenshots. They can serve as some proof of what you saw.
Gotta fight the system somehow. I just hope others see this, report issues, and share the link/info with others. Maybe next time you see a post or discussion about USA student loans, you'll share the link as well.
I'm fortunate enough that all the fucked up shit that my student loan servicer did wasn't going to break me, but plenty of others are in situations where it could have had significant negative impacts. Even 5 years ago, if they'd have pulled the same stunt it would have been tough to adapt. So, that's part of the reason why I like to share that link and encourage folks to use it.
You could also try the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Student loan servicers make banks look good.
And banks are generally evil. But at least they can follow an amortization schedule.
Biden: "Vote for me imma get rid of those student loans 100% no cap on a stack"
Biden after he becomes president : "jk lmao darn republicans amirite?"
Based.
They could send me a bill but I have to keep relocating my box to prevent the cops from beating me up. Shouldn't have went for that PhD 😔