Press Releases Archives - Page 12 of 30 - Americans for Financial Reform

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News Release: Trump administration fails to offer meaningful student debt relief

The Trump Administration’s minor tweaks for some federal student loan borrowers are insufficient and fail to tackle the crisis. The Department of Education announced that borrowers with federally held student loans will have the option to suspend payments, but will need to contact their servicer in order to request it. This requires effort on the part of borrowers who are already under stress. This is coming at a time when many student loan servicers are closing call centers or reducing hours. Worse still, it leaves out some federal student loan borrowers whose loans are not federally held.

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Joint Statement: Student Borrower Advocates Praise Senate Democrats’ Plan to Cancel Federal Student Debt

The 20 undersigned community, civil rights, consumer, and student advocacy organizations applaud the Senate Democrats’ student debt cancellation proposal. The plan will take decisive action to get immediate and impactful relief to millions of Americans. It will enable many economically distressed borrowers to focus on their own personal safety and that of others, while also freeing up extra dollars they can use to put back into the economy.

News Release: Senate Democrats Plan to Cancel Student Debt Would Stimulate the Economy and Provide Crucial Relief to Borrowers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 19, 2020 CONTACT: Alexis Goldstein, alexis@ourfinancialsecurity.org Senate Democrats Plan to Cancel Student Debt Would Stimulate the Economy and Provide Crucial Relief to Borrowers Statement from Alexis Goldstein, Senior Policy Analyst, Americans for Financial Reform: “The Senate Democrats plan to cancel student

News Release: AFR Applauds Senate Vote to stop rollback of Borrower Defense protections

AFR Applauds the Senate vote to block harmful rollback of Borrower Defense protections. Every Senate Democrat voted to roll back the 2019 changes that makes it even more difficult for students at schools that broke the law to get the debt relief they deserve. Joining the Democrats were ten Republicans: Senators John Boozman, Shelley Moore Capito, Susan Collins, Joni Ernst, Cory Gardner, Josh Hawley, Martha McSally, Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, Dan Sullivan, and Todd Young all voted to reject DeVos’ proposal that gave the green light to bad actors.

News Release: AFR Welcomes passage of H.J. Res. 76 to roll back DeVos attack on scammed students

Americans for Financial Reform welcomes the passage of H.J. Res. 76 to roll back Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ devastating attempt to make debt cancellation for scammed students nearly impossible. The resolution passed 231 to 180 with bipartisan support; 6 Republicans and all Democrats voted yes, with 19 members not voting.

AFR Statement: The Department of Education has the Authority to Cancel Federal Student Loans. It should.

Today’s proposal that administrative authority be used to cancel student debt, and the affirmation of the legality of such a step by the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School are important positive possibilities for student borrowers and their families and communities. AFR has long called on the Department of Education to use its existing legal authority to cancel the federal debts of wronged students of for-profit colleges without individual application – as have former Corinthian students, advocates, lawmakers, and law enforcement officials.

News Release: Advocates Urge FDIC, OCC, Federal Reserve to Stop Banks from Helping Payday Lenders Evade State Interest Rate Limits

A coalition of 61 consumer, civil rights, and community groups today sent letters to three federal bank regulators urging them not to allow their banks to help payday lenders evade state interest rate limits.

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News Release: The Students Not Profits Act will protect public dollars from abuses at for-profit colleges

Americans for Financial Reform welcomes the introduction of The Students Not Profits Act, let by Representative Pramila Jayapal, and Senators Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren. The for-profit college industry is plagued with bad outcomes for students, has a record of law breaking and abuse, and is responsible for 34% of student loan defaults, despite only enrolling 9% of post-secondary students. The Students Not Profits Act is a welcome and bold step to ensure that public dollars are not supporting and enabling malfeasance.

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News Release: CFPB’s Proposed Debt Collection Rule Faces Strong Bipartisan Opposition

Strong majorities across parties oppose the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) proposed debt collection rule including medical debt, according to a new poll released by Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). The poll was conducted by the bipartisan team of Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting.

A horde of toy zombies demonstrates the way the CFPB's debt collection proposal could unleash harassing calls from debt collectors trying to collect on old, invalid, "zombie" debts

AFR/CRL Poll: CFPB Debt Collection Proposal Faces Strong Bipartisan Opposition

In its proposed rule, CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger is sanctioning consumer harassment by allowing debt collectors to: call consumers seven times per debt, per week; send unlimited emails, texts, and social media messages without consumer consent; allow debt collectors to collect very old “zombie debts” where the time to sue has expired; and file baseless lawsuits by making it easier to sue the wrong consumer, for the wrong amount.