The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's student-loan ombudsman has issued his annual report. It finds that while the agency has made progress in making the student-loan repayment process fairness, serious problems remain.
[C]omplaints by student loan borrowers have driven actions that have produced more than $750 million in relief for student loan borrowers and strengthened the student loan repayment process for millions more. These changes include automatic student loan interest-rate reductions for eligible service members, more protections around federal student loan repayment relief, and the elimination of surprise “auto defaults” from most new private student loan contracts. The report shows also that in the last year the CFPB received more than 20,000 complaints from student loan borrowers, who report that widespread student loan servicing problems persist.