Statement on Extension of Student Loan Payment Pause
"President Biden and Secretary Cardona must commit to using this extension period to ensure that no borrower who was cheated by their school may be asked to pay back fraudulent loans — ever.”
BOSTON – President Biden today announced a 90 day extension of the pause on federal student loan repayment, which will now continue through May 1, 2022, rather than ending on February 1, 2022. The announcement cites ongoing concerns with the pandemic and economic recovery.
Statement from Eileen Connor, Director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending:
"Extending the payment pause is welcome and necessary news, but it is only a short term solution. For defrauded borrowers especially, the prospect of having unlawful loans put back into collection brings very real fears of having their wages or tax refunds garnished. Our clients also happen to be among those most impacted by the pandemic and the ongoing economic recovery that President Biden references — many of them frontline workers living paycheck to paycheck.”
Come May, it will be over a year since the Biden administration pledged to make things right for defrauded borrowers, yet many thousands are still waiting for answers on when their loans will be cancelled. It would be unconscionable for the Department of Education to put these loans back into repayment before it has resolved the issues surrounding borrower defense and predatory for-profit college debt. President Biden and Secretary Cardona must commit to using this extension period to ensure that no borrower who was cheated by their school may be asked to pay back fraudulent loans — ever.”The Project on Predatory Student Lending has represented more than one million former for-profit college students and won landmark cases against the Department of Education and predatory colleges. Its litigation has helped cancel more than $2 billion of fraudulent student debt.
About the Project on Predatory Student Lending
Established in 2012, the Project on Predatory Student Lending represents former students of predatory for-profit colleges. Its mission is to litigate to make it legally and financially impossible for federally-funded predatory schools to cheat students and taxpayers. The Project has brought a wide variety of cases on behalf of former students of for-profit colleges. It has sued the federal Department of Education for its failures to meet its legal obligation to police this industry and stop the perpetration and collection of fraudulent student loan debt.
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