News
Why People with Student Debt are Refusing to Repay It | CNBC
Sandy Nurse doesn’t see why she needs to be $120,000 in debt “just for trying to improve my understanding of the world.” And so, after a decade of struggling to repay her student loans, she plans to stop trying. She hopes others will join her, too, in a national strike against the country’s outstanding student loan debt, which is marching toward $1.7 trillion.
Toby Merrill and Eileen Connor | Boston Globe
Long before the Democratic candidates for president were warning about our national student debt crisis, Toby Merrill and Eileen Connor were doing something about it. They worked separately at first, and then together at Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending.
Muddied Picture for Defrauded Borrowers | Inside Higher Ed
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives were able to pass a measure last week expressing opposition to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s borrower-defense rule. But because of politics and both ongoing and upcoming legal battles, the vote did little to clear up what will happen to students who are asking for their loans to be discharged because they were defrauded by colleges.
House votes to make it easier for scammed borrowers to cancel student loans | MarketWatch
Federal lawmakers voted Thursday to block Education Department rules that would make it harder for scammed students to wipe away loans from shuttered schools. The Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure that would halt rules slated for implementation in July and reinstate Obama administration-era regulations on how to deal with the debt loads of students with useless degrees.
Former Students of Defunct ITT Tech Receive $95.1 Million Loan Relief | Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON—The Education Department is providing loan relief to some 7,800 former students of the ITT Technical Institute, with debts totaling $95.1 million being forgiven by the government years after the giant for-profit school chain closed. The department said that it has identified 7,878 former students of ITT Tech as eligible for a program in which loans are discharged automatically within three years of a school closure. Of those borrowers who attended the school, 7,697 had received loan forgiveness as of Jan. 3.
Defrauded college students will no longer be taxed on their canceled loans | Washington Post
Student loan borrowers whose education debt has been canceled because their college closed or engaged in fraud will no longer face a tax bill, relief that arrives as applications for forgiveness continue to grow. On Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service issued guidance shielding borrowers from having their discharged federal and private loans treated as taxable income. The measure is effective for education loans canceled on or after Jan. 1, 2016. Anyone affected by the new policy may claim a credit or refund for an overpayment of taxes.
Canceling Student Debt Is Easier Than It Sounds | NPR
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has pledged to cancel up to $50,000 of debt for 95% of student loan borrowers if she is elected president. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has proposed an even more generous plan if he's elected.
White House contender Warren sees path to cancel student loan debt without Congress | Reuters
Democrat Elizabeth Warren outlined on Tuesday how, if elected to the White House, she would on the first day of her presidency cancel federal student loan debt by using the Department of Education’s pre-existing authority.
Warren Would Bypass Congress to Cancel Federal Student Debt | Bloomberg
Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed Tuesday to ease federal student loan debt with executive authority, in a policy rollout aimed at attracting young voters. Warren said that as president, she would not wait for Congress to approve her plans to cancel or modify federal student debt. Instead, she would directly authorize the Department of Education to provide as much as $50,000 in relief to about 95% of student loan borrowers.