The U.S. Department of Education’s (“DOE”) promise of a kinder and gentler response to complaints to discharge federal student loans in bankruptcy has been long awaited and may have arrived. On November 17, 2022, DOE announced a radical departure in how it will analyze these types of cases. The new procedure can result in DOE...
Private student loans are the worst debt in America, bar none. Lenders have flocked to making private student loans, knowing there are few legal protections available to borrowers. I can get rid of IRS debt in a bankruptcy easier than I can student loan debt. One of my clients was told his payment would be...
Unlike federal student loans, private student loans have a statute of limitation. Some student lenders attempt to extend the statute of limitation to as long as 20 years by inserting language in student loan contract claiming it is one being executed under seal. A contract under seal is an arcane concept derived from colonial times...
Student loan debt in the United State has risen to $1.6 trillion dollars, second only to mortgages as the highest category of consumer debt in the United States. While new loans account for some of the increase, that’s only part of the story. One of the more obscure reasons for the explosion of student loan...
One of the more notorious private student loan businesses in America is National Collegiate Trust. National Collegiate Trust is an organization that specializes in the collection of private student loan debt in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and elsewhere. Since your loan is one of thousands of student loans transferred multiple times, this can create a real...
With student loan debt going back years, if not decades, having to disprove a billing error can be a daunting task. Old payments on older student loans can become important only after assignment to a new servicer when a problem first comes to light. Even if a borrower finds old canceled checks, how those payments...
Student loan borrowers won a significant battle when the federal first circuit found ECMC, a student loan monitor, abused the bankruptcy system in its collection of student loan debt. Hann v. ECMC, 711 F.3d 235 (1st Cir. 2013). Finding that Hann owed nothing, both a bankruptcy judge panel and the First Circuit Court of Appeals...
The college graduating class of 2012 is scheduled to start tossing caps in the air in just a few short weeks. But the celebrating may be more subdued because recent news has also given them the distinction as being the Most Indebited Graduating Class in U.S. history owing more than $1 trillion dollars in student loan...
[caption id="attachment_279" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Student loan debt exceeds credit card debt leaving many Americans strapped for cash."][/caption] A new report by USA Today finds that Americans' student loan debt is $850 billion dollars, which actually exceeds the total amount of Americans' credit card debt. What does that mean for our newest generation heading off to...
[caption id="attachment_204" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="With college costs rising, should parents and students go into debt to obtain that degree?"][/caption] Like generations of parents before you, you want your children to receive a great education . But unlike previous generations of parents who could wrangle together funds, grants and student loans, today's parents are finding that available...