Student Loan Blog

In what is being viewed as a direct hit to private third-party lenders in the Federal Family Education Loan Program who are fighting to keep the program alive, the U.S. Department of Education’s preliminary data paints the FFEL program as a costly and ineffective system with a 7.3-percent student loan default rate, two whole points higher than ...

As student loan debt continues to rise — jumping to $20,098 per graduating student loan borrower in 2007 from $18,796 in 2006 — and employment prospects continue to worsen, college graduates are experiencing greater difficulty repaying their student loans, and some of them have said enough is enough, BusinessWeek reports (''Asking for ...

Americans who have failed to repay their federal student loans may soon find themselves facing litigation, The National Law Journal reports (“Government Cracking Down on Unpaid Student Loans,” Feb. 13, 2009). The U.S. Department of Justice has contracted with Teller, Levit & Silvertrust, P.C., a collections law firm that specializes in ...

Thousands of student loan borrowers who have defaulted on their student loans — including 15,000 additional borrowers each month — are being forced to remain in default despite their efforts to bring their loans back into good standing, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports (“Credit Freeze Leaves Thousands of Student Borrowers Stuck in ...

Student loan provider Sallie Mae reported a $159 million loss this quarter as the ongoing credit crisis continues to pose financial challenges for borrowers (“Sallie Mae Reports $159-Million Loss and More Delinquencies by Borrowers,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 23, 2008). Sallie Mae said that a rapid rise in delinquencies on ...

A student-loan borrower has filed a class-action lawsuit against student-loan lender Northstar Higher Education for allegedly breaking its contract with borrowers. In the suit, filed Monday with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Northstar is accused of breaking its contract by eliminating its “Total Higher Education Repayment Bonus,” a ...

While demand for websites that allow borrowers to compare student loans is growing, the number of lenders listed on these sites is dwindling, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Web Sites That Compare Loans Gain Users, Lose Lenders,” July 18, 2008 issue). Over the past year, SimpleTuition, one of the most popular ...

Pennsylvania State University said its transition over to the federal Direct Loan Program is going “smoothly.” Already about 3,000 borrowers have taken out $5 million in student loans under the new program this summer, according to an article in The Daily Collegian (“PSU Direct Loan Program Successful,” July 11, 2008). The university made the ...

As many as 1 million Sallie Mae customers may be experiencing problems with their credit scores after the student loan company erroneously reported some of its borrowers’ student loan accounts as delinquent. Sallie Mae’s customers on graduated or extended repayment plans were unintentionally reported as borrowers who made only partial ...