[11][12] The suggested improvements include retroactively counting time spent in the plan towards forgiveness, for relief to be granted automatically, and for the program to apply to all federal student loans.
[12][13] On April 19, 2022, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona announced a new initiative modeled on this proposal, promising “[m]ore than 3.6 million borrowers will also receive at least three years of additional credit toward IDR forgiveness.”[14] In 2018, the group joined the American Federation of Teachers to launch an investigation into the failure of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
[15] Over the course of three years, Student Borrower Protection Center supported litigation by teachers and uncovered evidence of government mismanagement and industry abuses across the student loan system, including evidence that Public Service Loan Forgiveness systematically failed to deliver debt relief to members of the military, as reported by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes.
[16] In October 2021, the Biden administration announced an overhaul of the embattled program, promising immediate debt cancellation to tens of thousands of public service workers and additional credit towards loan forgiveness for over half a million borrowers.
[29] In 2020, the group filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing income-share agreement servicer Vemo Education of engaging in deceptive marketing practices.