Student Loans: Reports, Testimonies and Legal Decisions

The government documents included in this book are comprised of reports and testimonies from April 2018 to September 2018 on Student Loans. As of April 2018, over a million borrowers had taken steps to pursue Public Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) from the Department of Education, but few borrowers have been granted loan forgiveness to date. The first report examines the 1. Number of Borrowers pursuing PSLF and the extent to which Education has conducted outreach to increase borrower awareness of program eligibility requirements and 2. The extent to which Education has provided key information to PSLF service and borrowers. Recommendations follow. The second report describes the roles of Federal Student Aid's (FSA) non-school partners in the federal student financial aid program and assesses the extent to which FSA's policies and procedures for overseeing non-school partners' protection of federal student aid data align with federal requirements, federal guidance and best practices. The third report examines how schools work with borrowers to manage schools' cohort default rates and how these strategies affect borrowers and schools' accountability for defaults, and the extent to which Education oversees the strategies schools and their default management consultants use to manage schools' cohort default rates and informs the public about its efforts to hold schools accountable. Finally, the last report examines the status of Education's efforts to improve oversight of federal student loan services. Federal loans play a key role in ensuring access to higher education for millions of students each year. This report provides testimony over the last 3 years examining the weaknesses in Education's management and proposals for a new student loan servicer system.