This report investigates a decades-long scheme by the student loan industry to rob borrowers of their right to debt relief on many types of private student loans. Despite industry-perpetuated misconceptions, only a specific subset of private student loans face heightened scrutiny in bankruptcy....

This report examines the history of Income-Driven Repayment (IDR), identifies its key founding principles, the ways that policymakers have tried to meet them, and how the current design of the protection has fallen short of achieving its original goals. As a way to relieve the financial burden...

This report highlights how the payment formulas currently underlying Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) can harm low to middle-income borrowers, forcing them to choose between meeting basic needs and paying their monthly student loan bills. Using a series of hypothetical borrower scenarios, the...

In a letter to the U.S. Department of Education, the Student Borrower Protection Center (SPBC), National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), and Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) offer comments on proposed regulations to implement new statutory requirements to establish Federal Pell Grant (Pell Grant)...

This report documents the results of an SBPC investigation finding that emerging point-of-sale lending firms, and particularly those in the rapidly growing “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) space, are driving students toward risky loan products and propping up a startling array of questionable...

The Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) released an estimate that over 9 million public service workers with federal student loans are eligible to pursue debt cancellation through the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, even as fewer than 150,000 have had debts...

The Student Borrower Protection Center sent a letter to inform the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of serious concerns of ongoing harm to students arising from unfair and deceptive practices in the advertising, origination, and servicing of income share agreements (“ISAs”) involving...

On November 14, a coalition of non-profit organizations—including Student Borrower Protection Center; Community Legal Services of Philadelphia; Delaware Community Legal Aid Society; New Jersey Citizen Action; and New York Legal Assistance Group—filed an amicus brief to support the Consumer...

This report investigates the federal government’s harmful failure to manage its student debt collection apparatus during the COVID-19 pandemic. Collections Catastrophe reveals that the Department of Education (ED) may be powerless to implement protections for defaulted borrowers as required by...

The Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) sent a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to highlight new evidence of illegal conduct by Guaranty Agencies and to call on CFPB to protect borrowers. As the letter details, documents that the SBPC uncovered through state and...