President Obama to Take New Action for Student Loan Borrowers
Looks like the White House is tired of waiting on Congress and will move forward to expand the availability of Pay As You Earn to more student loan borrowers! I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to hear details about the President's plans! POTUS will be answering questions about reducing student loan debt on Tuesday, June 10, 2014 at 4:00 Eastern on Tumblr: http://obamairl.tumblr.com/ask
NCLC Sues Dept of Education for Debt Collection Records
The National Consumer Law Center, a consumer advocacy group that we love, is suing the Department of Education under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) over the department's refusal to release documents showing how the federal government awards bonuses to debt collection companies it hires to recover defaulted student loans. In its lawsuit filed yesterday, the NCLC asserts that the department violated FOIA by withholding records relating to the performance and incentive pay for the government’s contracted debt collectors. The NCLC…
Heather Joins ABA Task Force to Address Legal Education Costs
The American Bar Association announced last week that it has formed a new task force to examine the costs of obtaining a legal education in the United States. The ABA Task Force on the Financing of Legal Education is charged with looking at the cost of legal education for students, the financing of law schools, student loans and educational debt. It will also consider current practices of law schools regarding the use of merit scholarships, tuition discounting and need-based aid. Heather will join 13 esteemed colleagues…
Federal Student Loan Interest Rates Movin’ On Up
And in the “It Could Have Been Worse But It Still Sucks” category, the envelope please… Interest rates for new federal student loans are going up by 0.8 percent on July 1, 2014 (and are likely to go up again this time next year, and the year after that, and the year after that…). Under current law, new federal education loan interest rates are determined based on the 10-Year Treasury Yield (a benchmark economic indicator) as measured at auction each May. The interest rates you'll get next semester Subsidized…
Congress Seeks to Increase Taxes on Student Loan Borrowers
Sigh. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the feds can increase revenues by $13.0 billion over 2014-2023 by repealing the student loan interest deduction and shifting the full burden of student loan interest back to student loan borrowers. And if Congress also required student loan borrowers who have committed their careers to public service to pay tax on loan forgiveness they earned, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates they could increase tax revenue by an additional $1.1 billion. The “Tax Reform Act of 2014”…
