As we predicted at last week’s meeting of the National Council of Higher Education Resources’ Private Student Loan Committee, the CFPB field hearing held last Wednesday in Miami was devoted to student loan affordability. In fact, prior to the hearing, the CFPB released a report with just that title and the hearing was clearly intended… More >
Category Archives: Student Loans
Subscribe to Student Loans RSS FeedCFPB to hold student loan field hearing on May 8
Posted in Student LoansThe CFPB has announced that on May 8, 2013, it will hold a field hearing in Miami-Dade County, Florida on student loan borrowers. CFPB Director Richard Cordray will be giving remarks at the event. The CFPB’s practice has been to use field hearings as the venue for announcing a new release or initiative. Student loan… More >
CFPB proposes supervision of nonbank private and federal student loan servicers
Posted in Student LoansThe CFPB has issued a proposal to supervise nonbank student loan servicers who qualify as “larger participants” in the student loan servicing market. The CFPB already supervises student loan servicing by larger banks. It also already supervises, without regard to their size, nonbanks that offer or provide private student loans and student loan servicing by such… More >
CFPB seeking information for a “student loan affordability plan”
Posted in Student LoansPerhaps with the Obama administration’s “Making Home Affordable” plan in mind, the CFPB announced last week that it was taking the first step to develop a “student loan affordability plan” by issuing a Notice and Request for Information. The CFPB plans to use the information gathered from the RFI “to explore more detailed recommendations to… More >
Director Cordray targets payday and student lenders in remarks to Consumer Advisory Board
Posted in Payday Lending, Student LoansDirector Cordray’s prepared remarks for yesterday’s meeting of the CFPB Consumer Advisory Board contained some particularly ominous signs for student and payday lenders. In the student lending area, Mr. Cordray focused on perceived similarities between servicing problems experienced by mortgage loan borrowers and those experienced by student loan borrowers. Observing that student loan servicing has the “same problematic [financial] incentive… More >
Is the CFPB now the BMOC?
Posted in Student LoansLast week, the CFPB muscled its way on campus, announcing that it will be looking at the impact of financial products marketed to students through their colleges and universities. And by financial products, the CFPB made it clear that it was primarily referring to bundled school identification and debit cards, debit cards that are used to… More >
CFPB issues student loan exam procedures
Posted in Student LoansThe CFPB has issued its examination procedures for student lenders. The procedures will be used by the CFPB’s examiners in examinations of large banks that make private student loans (meaning banks with total assets of more than $10 billion), nonbank private student lenders and service providers to such entities. The procedures consist of a series… More >
CFPB’s “Paying for College” site continues to evolve
Posted in Student LoansLast week Peter Jackson, the Senior Advisor for Communications at the CFPB, put up a post on the CFPB’s blog describing the CFPB’s “Paying for College” web tools, which are currently in a beta stage and which are still continuing to evolve. In fact, the CFPB invites consumers and “stakeholders” to continue to comment on the… More >
Financial aid shopping sheet gaining traction
Posted in Student LoansThe Financial Aid Shopping Sheet prepared by the CFPB and the Department of Education will now receive its litmus test. Last week, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced in a blog post on the DOE’s web site that more than 500 colleges and universities have agreed to use the Shopping Sheet for financial aid awarded… More >
Chopra keeps focus on student loan servicing problems
Posted in Student LoansIn an editorial last week in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rohit Chopra, the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman, once again made servicers of student loans the focus of his comments. In August, in remarks to the Congressional Forum on Student Loans, Mr. Chopra spoke about lessons learned from the mortgage market that might be applied to student loans. One of those lessons… More >
CFPB issues report on servicemember student loan debt
Posted in Student LoansA new CFPB report titled “The Next Front? Student Loan Servicing and the Cost to Our Men and Women in Uniform” focuses on repayment issues faced by servicemembers with private and federal student loans. One of the report’s findings is that many servicemembers could be entering into more favorable repayment plans if they had better… More >
CFPB student loan ombudsman releases first annual report
Posted in Student LoansRecently, the CFPB’s Consumer Response Team released its Snapshot of Complaints, providing a one-page summary of the approximately 2900 private student loan complaints received by the CFPB from March 1, 2012 through September 30, 2012. Last week, only six days later, Rohit Chopra, the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman, released his first Annual Report, providing a… More >
Pew report could bolster CFPB student loan concerns
Posted in Student LoansThe Pew Research Center has just released a report that seems likely to bolster the CFPB’s concerns about student loans. The report notes that “in nearly every demographic and economic category” more households are borrowing more money to finance the cost of a college education. Perhaps not surprisingly, the report indicates that those households now… More >
Whew! CFPB reanalysis of student loan data doesn’t change findings and recommendations (but CFPB’s description of reanalysis changes)
Posted in Student LoansAfter reanalyzing certain sample loan level data, the CFPB announced that it is not making any changes to the key findings and recommendations in its July report to Congress on private student loans. The CFPB had posted a “research note” on its website to accompany the report disclosing that it had been informed by the lenders… More >
Chopra student loan remarks could signal new CFPB proposals or actions
Posted in Student LoansRecent remarks by Rohit Chopra, the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman, to the Congressional Forum on Student Loans and in an interview with Bloomberg Radio could presage new CFPB student loan recommendations to Congress or even CFPB examinations, investigations, and/or rulemaking proceedings. In his remarks to the Congressional Forum, Mr. Chopra analogized student loan borrowers who… More >
Oops: CFPB reanalyzing data in private student loan report
Posted in Student LoansThe CFPB has indicated on its website that it is reanalyzing sample loan level data that was the basis for various results contained in the CFPB’s report to Congress on private student loans issued in July. According to the “research note” that now accompanies the report, the CFPB was informed by the lenders who provided… More >
Financial aid shopping sheet for student loans finalized
Posted in Student LoansA final model “financial aid shopping sheet,” the result of a collaborative effort by the CFPB and the Department of Education, has recently been issued by the DOE. The shopping sheet is intended to serve as a uniform financial aid disclosure form. Following the CFPB’s release of feedback it received on a draft of the shopping… More >
CFPB issues student loan report and launches online tool for problem student loans
Posted in Student LoansThe CFPB issued today its report to Congress on private student loans as mandated by Dodd-Frank, which the CFPB describes as the “Cycle of boom and bust in private student loan market.” Issued jointly with the Department of Education, the report consists of five parts dealing with (1) lenders, loan markets and products, (2) borrower characteristics… More >
CFPB shares feedback on online college cost comparison tool
Posted in Student LoansIn a recent blog post, the CFPB shared some of the feedback it has received on the beta version of its “Paying for College-Cost Comparison Tool” that it launched in April. (We tried out the tool when it was launched and wrote about what we found.) The CFPB reported that the beta test was a… More >
CFPB and State Attorneys General cooperate in military arena
Posted in Student LoansThe investigation that led to the settlement announced last week among 20 State Attorneys General and QuinStreet, Inc., the owner of a website that markets educational institutions to military servicemembers and their families, was launched as result of the CFPB’s examination of the website, according to news reports. The Attorneys General alleged that the websites, including… More >
Student loans: lots of comments and another request for information
Posted in Student LoansThe CFPB has finally published the nearly 2,000 comments it received from individual borrowers, parents, and others as a result of the request for information in which it asked a series of questions to assist it in preparing a report about private student loans and set January 17, 2012 as the deadline for responses. (We wrote about that request in an… More >
Lawmakers want CFPB input on use of college debit cards to disburse financial aid
Posted in Debit Cards, Student LoansIn addition to a flurry of news reports, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund’s report on the use of debit cards to disburse federal financial aid to college students has also triggered a letter to the CFPB and the U.S. Department of Education by two Democrat lawmakers. Issued last month, the report found… More >
Executive Order on military educational benefits includes role for CFPB
Posted in Student LoansAs reported in a recent blog post by Holly Petreaus, Assistant Director of the CFPB’s Office of Servicemembers Affairs, an Executive Order signed last week by President Obama directs the Secretaries of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Education to consult with the CFPB and the U.S. Attorney General to take immediate action to ensure that service… More >
Criticism for CFPB’s online college cost comparison tool
Posted in Student LoansEarlier this month, we reported on the launch of the CFPB’s new online tool for comparing college costs. The tool, which allows prospective students to compare the costs at up to three colleges at a time, was recently criticized for overestimating the debt a student will incur. Tony Pals, the communications director for the National… More >
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