Is Mulvaney Changing the CFPB’s Structure to Downgrade Student Loan Enforcement?

by Jeff Sovern

Glen Thrush has an article in the Times headlined Mulvaney Demotes Unit That Polices Student Loans in Consumer Bureau Reshuffle. Excerpt:

The change comes at a critical moment in the agency’s effort to rein in abuses in the student loan industry. The program, started under the Obama administration, has clawed back about $750 million from lenders since 2011. At the center of the bureau’s effort is its case against Navient, a spinoff of Sallie Mae, which the agency accused in 2017 of steering low-income borrowers into higher payments than they needed to make, misallocating payments and failing to provide customers with clear information about cost-saving options.

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Navient has denied wrongdoing and deployed a team of Washington-based lobbyists to fight what they believe is an unfair investigation.

 “The size of the student loan portfolio is massive, and it’s growing — second only to home mortgages — and now we are gutting oversight,” said Chris Peterson, a University of Utah law professor who was a top staff member at the bureau.
 
“It’s appalling,” he said. “They are trying to take the teeth out of enforcement, and it’s going to have a big impact on the most vulnerable student borrowers, who are being misled and bankrupted.”

0 thoughts on “Is Mulvaney Changing the CFPB’s Structure to Downgrade Student Loan Enforcement?

  1. WOLFGANG DEMINO says:

    The CFPB’s Enforcement Action against the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts (holding pools of private student loans, including very predatory ones originated in 2007 just before the Crash) has also been put on hold.
    The last docket entry reads as follows:
    03/02/2018 CORRECTING ENTRY: Pursuant to plaintiff counsel’s phone call to the court, the case management order has been removed from the docket due to the unique nature of this case. The parties are to disregard the order. An order of that type may be entered in the future. (mdb) (Entered: 03/02/2018)
    See copy of entire PACER docket here:
    http://debt-suit-litigation-in-texas.blogspot.com/2018/04/cfpb-status-report-on-enforcement.html
    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. The National Collegiate Master Student Loan Trust, et al. (D. Del. No. 1:17-cv-01323).

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