In a lengthy complaint, the the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Wednesday said that Navient, which oversees $300 billion in student loans for 12.5 million borrowers, failed customers “at every stage of repayment,” according to a New York Times commentary on Saturday. It’s not enough, in other words, that students must struggle with onerous debt after college. Navient added to the burden, the bureau said, by making those loans harder to repay. Navient failed to apply borrower repayments accurately, the bureau said, and the company did not make clear what its customers needed to do to keep their payments low, according to the commentary. Worst of all, though, it accused Navient of hurting disabled military veterans, who can seek loan forgiveness under a federal program. Navient, the lawsuit said, inaccurately told credit reporting companies that veterans taking advantage of this program had defaulted on their loans.
