Illusory Due Process: The Broken Student Loan Hearing System

Student loan collection hearings should be the primary gateway to relief for borrowers in default, but the system is profoundly broken. The author presents case examples, available data, and responses from industry surveys to describe how student loan collection hearings offer no more than an illusion of due process. The later sections present reform proposals to improve the existing hearing system, including eliminating private contractor outsourcing and increasing government accountability and oversight. Recognizing that it is counterproductive to try to fix the hearing process without tackling systemic issues, the final section includes a summary of broad reform measures aimed at ending the current debt-fueled federal student aid system

Federal Student Aid: Can We Solve a Problem We Do Not Understand?

At over $1 trillion, with more than 8 million borrowers in default, the federal student loan program is in trouble. There is no question that policymakers will do their best to fix it in the coming years. The only question is whether they will have the evidence they need to make informed judgments about what ails our student loan program, and what can cure it. In the coming years, advocates, policymakers, and researchers should focus on gathering data and information on all possible causes of the failures in the student loan program. As the previous Part describes, the public has a number of tools at its disposal to procure more data and information. Individual organizations may, of course, use these tools on their own, but there are compelling reasons to think more broadly. By pooling their capacity to make requests and sharing the results, advocates and researchers can move toward a broader base of information for the entire higher education policy field. A collective effort toward improved information on the student loan program might include a narrow set of “research” questions—or areas of inquiry—that organizations will pursue together, and an independent repository that stores the results of these inquiries in an easily searchable format

Federal Student Aid: Can We Solve a Problem We Do Not Understand?

At over $1 trillion, with more than 8 million borrowers in default, the federal student loan program is in trouble. There is no question that policymakers will do their best to fix it in the coming years. The only question is whether they will have the evidence they need to make informed judgments about what ails our student loan program, and what can cure it. In the coming years, advocates, policymakers, and researchers should focus on gathering data and information on all possible causes of the failures in the student loan program. As the previous Part describes, the public has a number of tools at its disposal to procure more data and information. Individual organizations may, of course, use these tools on their own, but there are compelling reasons to think more broadly. By pooling their capacity to make requests and sharing the results, advocates and researchers can move toward a broader base of information for the entire higher education policy field. A collective effort toward improved information on the student loan program might include a narrow set of “research” questions—or areas of inquiry—that organizations will pursue together, and an independent repository that stores the results of these inquiries in an easily searchable format