Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

From today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

So far this year, more than 1,000 student borrowers have complained to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in Washington about the practices of an obscure but powerful Pennsylvania state agency that services their loans.

Now the consumer bureau has hired a high-ranking executive from the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency as the nation’s top student loan watchdog — which means that Robert G. Cameron, previously a top compliance official for the agency, will be tasked with evaluating his former employer. Millions of student borrowers know the Pennsylvania organization as FedLoan, American Education Services, or PHEAA.

Critics called Cameron’s appointment another example of the revolving door of executives and staffers between the federal student loan bureaucracy and private companies, and of the overt campaign by the Trump administration to undermine Obama-era protections for student borrowers.

“It is outrageous that an executive from the student loan company that has cheated students and taxpayers — and is at the center of every major industry scandal over the past decade — is now in charge of protecting borrowers’ rights,” Seth Frotman, the former ombudsman and now executive director of the nonprofit Student Borrower Protection Center.

By Editor