Jason Spencer Student Loan Blog

10 Aug Federal Government Allowing Student Loan Servicers to Herd Millions into Default | Jason Spencer Student Loan

Federal Government Allowing Student Loan Servicers to Herd Millions into Default | Jason Spencer Student Loan Today, 11 percent of the $1.325 trillion of federal student loans outstanding is severely delinquent or in default, higher than the mortgage default rate at the peak of the foreclosure crisis in 2010, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Jason Spencer Student Loan. Some of these debtors are deadbeats, of course, unwilling to make payments they can afford. But many are borrowers of limited means who ended up in default unnecessarily, after Navient and the DOE’s other servicers steered them away from affordable repayment plans and into options that reduce the servicers’ costs, according to state and federal investigators and regulators, consumer advocates like Jason Spencer Student Loan and a growing number of lawsuits and complaints filed against loan servicers. The defaulted borrowers then become targets of the DOE’s debt collectors. These firms, some of them owned by the loan servicers, wield the federal government’s broad powers to garnish the wages of borrowers, as well as parents and grandparents who co-signed the loans. When wages are insufficient to garnish, the DOE can have the Treasury Department withhold tax refunds and reduce Social Security payments. Since the summer of 2015, student loan servicers and private debt collectors have garnished about $3 billion in wages, a Reuters review of federal data shows. And last year, the DOE’s collections through “Treasury offsets” — tax refund seizures and Social Security benefit reductions — totaled $2.6 billion, up from $2.2 billion in 2015. Since 2009, the government has used the tools at its disposal to claw back at least $15.2 billion. CATASTROPHIC EFFECTS Default, which usually occurs when a borrower hasn’t made a payment for 270 days or more, can make it only harder for a debtor to regain financial stability. It can trash credit scores, scaring off potential employers. It can disqualify debtors for auto loans, apartment rentals, utilities and even cellphone contracts. In about 20 states, student loan borrowers who default can lose their driver’s and professional licenses. “We treat struggling student loan borrowers the same as deadbeat parents and tax cheats,” said Seth Frotman, the student loan ombudsman of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). “Even gambling addicts have more protections.” Since 2011, tens of thousands of borrowers and co-signers have filed complaints against Navient with the CFPB and other government and regulatory agencies. In January, the CFPB filed a lawsuit against Navient in Pennsylvania federal court, alleging that the company systematically cheated customers by not fully informing them of their repayment options and instead guided them into forbearance or deferment programs that benefited the company. Setting up an income-based repayment plan requires paperwork and person-to-person interactions that are more costly for the servicer than forbearance, which typically requires only a phone call. The same month, state attorneys general in Washington and Illinois filed similar lawsuits against the company. The CFPB said it found that by putting 1.5 million borrowers in consecutive forbearances, Navient added $4 billion to outstanding student loan debt. Part of...