Author Archives: Julie Murray

New report on troubled federal grant program overseen by loan servicers

Yesterday Public Citizen issued a new report on the Department of Education’s mismanagement of the TEACH Grant program. The report is based on more than 2,400 pages of records we obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, most of which we released for the first time yesterday. The report paints a dire picture of […]

New group to focus on state and local student loan efforts

The New York Times profiles a new watchdog group started by a CFPB alum to focus on student loan issues: Three months ago, one of the government’s top student loan watchdogs, Seth Frotman, stepped down from his job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with a scathing resignation letter that criticized the Trump administration for […]

Rule to help federal student loan borrowers finally takes effect

We’ve covered before the Department of Education’s recent attempt to gut a rule adopted under the Obama administration to help student loan borrowers and rein in for-profit colleges. The regulation, commonly referred to as the borrower defense rule, was supposed to take effect on July 1, 2017. The Department issued a series of delays, which […]

Department of Education will miss the deadline to gut borrower protections this year

In a filing last night, the Department of Education announced that it will miss a November 1 statutory deadline to publish a rule that rolls back protections for student loan borrowers and students defrauded by for-profit colleges. Those protections, part of what’s known as the Obama-era borrower defense rule, were set to go into effect […]

Arbitration rule at the Department of Education is under attack

In case you missed it earlier this month, the Trump Administration has indicated it will turn its back on another Obama-era rule, this time at the Department of Education (ED). In November 2016, ED announced a new rule to protect federal student loan borrowers who are victims of fraud and other misconduct by predatory schools, […]

Trump University Settlement Underscores the Need for Forced Arbitration Ban in Higher Education

MarketWatch has a new article explaining why forced arbitration provisions have keep students at for-profit colleges from "get[ting] a Trump University-type outcome" when the students have alleged that their schools have defrauded them. The article also discusses the Department of Education's new rule cutting federal funding to schools that use forced arbitration provisions with their […]

Are Obama’s Higher Education Reforms in Doubt?

The Washington Post has an article on the implications of a Trump Administration for higher education reforms. According to experts with whom the Post spoke, "some of the most significant policy changes in a Trump administration would be the repeal of regulations targeting for-profit colleges." But the article also indicates that "[t]here are conflicting messages coming out […]

Department of Education in Hot Water over Continued Efforts to Collect Debts Held by Corinthian Students

Last week, Senator Warren sent a letter to the Department of Education drawing attention to some “unsettling” data:  Nearly 80,000 former Corinthian students who attended the now-defunct school at a time when the Department found the school was engaged in fraud—and who are therefore eligible to apply for federal debt relief—are currently in some form […]

L.A. Times Connects the Dots Between the Wells Fargo Scandal and Forced Arbitration

The L.A. Times has an excellent article adding to the coverage about Wells Fargo’s use of forced arbitration clauses and how the clauses allowed the bank to deflect consumer fraud allegations over its employees’ practice of opening bogus customer accounts. The article gives important attention to the bank’s inclusion of delegation clauses in its arbitration […]

Sun Sentinel: Three-part series on the Gulf Coast’s deadly oyster harvest

Last week Florida’s Sun Sentinel published a three-part series about the Gulf Coast’s raw oyster industry and consumers who have been sickened or killed after consuming raw oysters containing Vibrio vulnificus, a type of bacteria that thrives in Gulf waters. The series describes how elected leaders in Gulf states distorted facts about the cost of […]