ATLANTA (October 24, 2026) – Today, in recognition of her contributions to the practice of consumer law, Rebecca Ellis, deputy litigation director at the Project on Predatory Student Lending, accepted the National Consumer Law Center’s 2026 Rising Star Award. The award recognizes attorneys who have been in practice for 15 years or fewer who have made major contributions to consumer law within the past two years.

Rebecca received the award in recognition of her work leading landmark litigation against the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in Sweet v. McMahon. The class action lawsuit has so far delivered more than $12 billion in federal student loan cancellation and $1 billion in refunds to nearly 500,000 former students of predatory higher ed schools. 

Nearly a year after the Trump Administration announced it would resume “involuntary collection,” the federal student loan collections apparatus still does not exist in any stable form. In the most recent announcement on default, the Trump Administration revealed that it was finally letting borrowers apply for default relief programs… using the internet. The third and final blog in this series looks at the root of the collection problem: mounting evidence suggests the U.S. Department of Education (ED) may not even have the data it needs to certify these debts for collection in the first place—a legal prerequisite the government cannot skip no matter which vendor is holding the file.

With Sweet’s $23 billion settlement, PPSL has secured $50 billion in federal student loan discharges for borrowers defrauded by predatory schools. 

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied ED's latest challenge to key deadlines in the landmark settlement, which has secured $23 billion in relief for more than 500,000 borrowers.

After the Department failed to respond to 15 FOIA requests, some pending for over two years, PPSL seeks records on relief promised to more than 1.5 million borrowers