WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) issued the following statement after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced lawsuits against Navient, the country’s largest servicer of federal and private student loans, for mishandling accounts and misinforming borrowers about their eligibility for income-based repayment.
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“Student loan servicers, as contractors of the U.S. Department of Education, have an obligation to provide borrowers with complete, accurate, and timely information about their student loans. Navient has failed in that obligation time and again, cheating struggling students and families out of their hard-earned dollars,” said Durbin. “Today’s announcement makes the process initiated by the Obama Administration to re-compete student loan servicing contracts more important than ever. I hope the next Administration will continue the work that’s already been done to inject meaningful new student protections into the contracts of Department of Education student loan servicers and dump servicers with a history of engaging in illegal practices.”
Navient’s practices have long been a subject of concern. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice required the company, then Sallie Mae, to pay $60 million for charging service members excessive student loan interest rates.
In 2015, Senator Durbin was joined by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Jack Reed (D-RI) in introducing the Student Loan Borrower’s Bill of Rights to ensure struggling student loan borrowers are treated fairly by loan servicers and understand the full range of repayment options and resources available to them.
