Student Loans

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We previously wrote about the June 2014 Brookings Institution report which suggested that charges coming from various quarters, including the CFPB, that student loan debt is causing young adults to postpone home ownership are overblown.  The report found that the typical household with debt is no worse off today than a generation ago, with increases in lifetime earnings more than offsetting increases in debt, and monthly payment burdens kept manageable by longer repayment periods. … Continue Reading

This past May, we wrote about the $60 million Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) settlement announced by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Education (ED) with a major student loan servicer and expressed our concern that the settlement could be seen as changing the rules for when all servicers must reduce the interest rate on a loan to a servicemember to 6 percent. … Continue Reading

The CFPB announced that it has entered into a “Joint Higher Education Memorandum of Understanding” with the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA), Defense (DOD), and Education (ED) as part of a joint effort by the agencies “to prevent abusive and deceptive recruiting practices by schools serving servicemembers, veterans, spouses and other family members.” … Continue Reading

Two recent articles highlight how student loan debt is often the subject of distorted reporting. 

An article from Hamilton Place Strategies observed that news stories often include anecdotal stories about families burdened by student debt.  After examining about 100 articles with such stories over a three month period, the authors found that the new stories “are distinctly unrepresentative of the actual facts about student debt.”  … Continue Reading

A new report from The Vanguard Group disagrees with those who seek to draw comparisons between the current level of student debt and the level of mortgage debt that led to the housing crisis.

Titled “No bubble to burst: U.S. student debt is not housing,” the report found that student debt growth is too small to repeat the housing crisis of 2007-2009. … Continue Reading

We recently wrote about a new Brookings Institution report which suggested that charges coming from various quarters, including the CFPB, that student loan debt is causing young adults to postpone home ownership are overblown.  The report found that the typical household with debt is no worse off today than a generation ago, with increases in lifetime earnings more than offsetting increases in debt, and monthly payment burdens kept manageable by longer repayment periods. … Continue Reading

The charge that student loan debt is causing young adults to postpone home ownership has come from various quarters, including the CFPB.   However, two new studies, one the subject of an article released earlier this year and the other the subject of a Brookings Institution report released this week, suggest those charges are overblown. … Continue Reading

President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum last Monday directing the Secretary of Education to issue regulations that allow additional students to take advantage of a program to cap their student loan payments at 10 percent of their income and to improve communication about that option and existing student loan repayment options.… Continue Reading

New legislation, titled the Servicemember Higher Education Protection Act (the “Bill”), was introduced recently by Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC).  The Bill includes several provisions that expand protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) with respect to student loans.    

  • The Bill would amend the SCRA to expand the available interest rate limitation for student loans, aligning the protection with that currently applied only to mortgage obligations. 
… Continue Reading