This terrific essay by Steve Rhode first appeared on Consumer Debt Guy blog site on September 6, 2017.
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By Steve Rhode on September 6, 2017
The Consumerist
is reporting the Department of Education has terminated its cooperation with
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in dealing with student loan servicer
problems.
“DeVos accuses the Bureau
of not living up to its end of agreements established in 2011 and 2013, by
doing too much to hold loan servicers accountable.”
“DeVos suggests that actions taken by the CFPB
to rein in shoddy student loan servicers and collectors only confuses
borrowers.
“The Department takes exception to the CFPB
unilaterally expanding its oversight role to include the Department’s
contracted federal student loan servicers,” DeVos wrote. “The Department has
full oversight responsibility for federal student loans.”
However, the Department’s ability to root out
fraud was thrown into question last week, when the agency appointed
former for-profit college executive Julian Schmoke to run the Department’s
enforcement division.
While Schmoke currently works as a
high-ranking director at a community college in Georgia, he spent several years
working for DeVry University, a college that has been repeatedly accused
of fraud by both federal and state authorities.”
“The claim that the CFPB ‘unilaterally’
expanded its oversight role over servicers and collectors of federal student
loans is unfounded,” Persus Yu, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s
Student Loan Borrower Project, said in a statement.
“Education is now trying to stop the CFPB from
handling loan-related complaints, but Education’s failures are what led
Congress to give the CFPB authority to help students,” Yu said. “DeVos is
prioritizing the interests of predatory for-profit schools, debt collectors,
and troubled student loan services over the interests of student loan
borrowers.”
This recent action and the fact the Department of Education has
not approved Borrower Defense claims leads me to wonder where is any proof the
Department of Education gives a damn about student loan debtors.