AFR and SBPC Send Letter to Navient Demanding Investment in Student Borrowers, not Shareholders Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and The Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) sent a letter to the Board of Directors of Navient Corporation urging the company’s board to halt dividends and
According to the Washington Post, Navient will suspend any new lawsuits against private student loan borrowers, and National Collegiate has said no new lawsuits will be filed for at least two months. This is the bare minimum of what should happen in the midst of a pandemic, but it is step in the right direction which we welcome and urge all other private student loan servicers to take as well.
Today at a public hearing at the Department of Education, AFR’s senior policy analyst gave testimony about the need to reinstate the Memorandum of Understanding with the CFPB, ended by Secretary DeVos to widespread criticism.
Secretary’s DeVos’s actions to rescind three past Department of Education memos moves us away from true accountability, and creates dangers for the very student loan borrowers the Department is responsible for protecting.
Navient’s CEO Jack Remondi lashed out at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for daring to do its job to protect student loan borrowers from up to $4 billion in unnecessary interest charges caused by Navient’s illegal servicing practices. Remondi’s complaints are a deceptive and self-interested attempt to evade responsibility for breaking the law.
We welcome the news that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took action to protect student loan borrowers today by suing Navient for steering struggling borrowers toward paying more than they had to on their loans. The Bureau is joined by state attorneys general from Illinois and Washington, who today both filed their own lawsuits. This action makes clear why we need a strong, independent CFPB under the leadership of Director Cordray, whose work is putting billions of dollars back in the pockets of the people who earned them, rather than the coffers of companies who stole from them.