Murray: Trump Administration Is “Giving Student Loan Corporations the Green Light to Take Advantage of Students”
CFPB is eliminating the watchdog unit responsible for handling student loan borrower abuses
Murray: “It’s telling that President Trump’s reaction to millions of borrowers struggling to pay back their student loans and asking for help with unmanageable debt is to shut down the only office focused on serving student loan borrowers”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee released the following comment on reports that Mick Mulvaney, Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), is eliminating the Office of Students & Young Consumers, the only office in the federal government exclusively focused on serving and protecting student loan borrowers.
“It’s telling that President Trump’s reaction to millions of borrowers struggling to pay back their student loans and asking for help with unmanageable debt is to shut down the only office focused on serving student loan borrowers. President Trump is giving student loan corporations the green light to take advantage of students without fear of repercussion and sending a clear message to students that this Administration is not interested in their best interests when it gets in the way of corporate profits.”
The move is the latest step by the Trump Administration to shirk responsibility to student loan borrowers. In September 2017, the Department of Education announced it would stop coordinating with the CFPB on student loan borrower cases, incorrectly asserting the CFPB did not have jurisdiction over federal student loans. In February 2018, Senator Murray questioned Mick Mulvaney’s commitment to continue overseeing the student loan industry, but received only evasive answers. In April, she joined her colleagues in calling on the CFPB to release records related to a potential settlement with one of the nation’s largest student loan companies.
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