#frotman

[tubbsmccracken]

A Novel Way to Finance School May Penalize Students From H.B.C.U.s, Study Finds

Income-share agreements are gaining popularity, but a new analysis highlights how calculations of what borrowers owe can penalize minorities.

[sarcasticcynic]

Student Loan Watchdog Quits, Says Trump Administration 'Turned Its Back' On Borrowers

The nation's student loan watchdog has resigned from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, arguing that its current leadership has undermined efforts to protect student borrowers.

Seth Frotman is was the student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“Frotman oversaw the CFPB’s Office for Students and Young Consumers and reviewed thousands of complaints from student borrowers about the questionable practices of private lenders, loan servicers and debt collectors. Since 2011, the CFPB has handled more than 60,000 student loan complaints and, through its investigations and enforcement actions, returned more than $750 million to aggrieved borrowers. Frotman’s office was central to those efforts.”

The CFPB, you may recall, is an independent agency. Trump hates that concept so much that he sent the Department of Justice into court to argue that the CFPB was unconstitutional. When that didn’t work, Trump appointed his crony Mick Mulvaney--who is on record as calling the CFPB “a joke ... in a sick, sad kind of way”--as the CFPB’s Acting Director. Mulvaney has dutifully done everything he can to weaken the CFPB, including:

Eliminating Frotman’s Office for Students and Young Consumers, folding it into “the bureau's financial education office, signaling a symbolic shift in mission from investigation to information-sharing”

Asking Congress to curb the agency’s powers

Killing the CFPB rule that allowed injured consumers to bring class actions instead of being forced into individual arbitration

Stripping enforcement powers from a CFPB unit responsible for pursuing discrimination cases

Siding with payday lenders who sued the CFPB to block implementation of new industry regulations

Suppressing a report that some of the nation’s largest banks were “saddling [students] with legally dubious account fees”

Unilaterally firing the entire Consumer Advisory Board

Eliminating the CFPB’s online database tracking complaints about illegal fees, inaccurate debt collection, and the like

Trump’s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, has done her part as well:

Announcing that Department of Education would no longer share information with the CFPB about the department’s oversight of federal student loans, after the CFPB sued the nation’s largest student-loan servicer, Navient, for mismanaging borrower payments and steering struggling borrowers into costly plans

Protecting student loan servicers and debt collectors from states’ efforts to regulate them

Scrapping the Department’s Gainful Employment regulations, which are specifically designed to target “schools where graduates struggle with poor earnings and deep debt”

Frotman finally had enough. He resigned, in a scathing letter to Mulvaney:

“After 10 months under your leadership, it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side. ... under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America. ... It is clear that the current leadership of the Bureau has abandoned its task to fairly and robustly enforce the law. The Bureau’s new political leadership has repeatedly undercut and undermined career CFPB staff working to secure relief for consumers. ... Recently, senior leadership at the Bureau blocked efforts to call attention to the ways in which the actions of this administration will hurt families ripped off by predatory for-profit schools. Similarly, senior leadership also blocked attempts to alert the Department of Education to the far-reaching harm borrowers will face due to the Department’s unprecedented and illegal attempts to preempt state consumer laws and shield student loan companies from accountability for widespread abuses. ...  The current leadership has turned its back on young people and their financial futures.”

Too bad that, to the Trump administration, Frotman’s letter just looks like a stellar commendation of Mulvaney’s work.

[deepfinds-blog]

CFPB student loan watchdog Seth Frotman quits over Mulvaney frustrations The federal government’s top official charged with protecting student loan borrowers announced his resignation on Monday, saying the Trump administration is making it impossible for him and other career staffers to do their job.