3 Student Loan Wishes for 2016

1. The implementation of a Federal Student Aid complaint system: Having a centralized place for students and borrowers to file complaints was part of the Student Aid Bill of Rights the Obama administration issued last spring.
There’s been some recent progress on this goal with the Department of Education recently sharing some mock-ups of what some of the pages on the system might look like, and with the publication of a Federal Register earlier this month requesting feedback on the proposed system. It appears they plan to have this centralized system up and running by July
While the Student Loan Ranger thinks that a centralized complaint system for consumers is a very good thing, our wish for 2016 is that this system be used to its full potential.
Ideally the system will eventually provide timely resolutions for students and student loan borrowers and also be used to identify trends that might help streamline or change existing processes, laws and regulations to continue to improve the higher education financing system. We also hope that the system promotes further transparency within the federal student aid programs.
Finally, as a consumer advocate, we recognize that many federal-aid-related disputes are the result of misunderstandings or miscommunication on what is allowed under federal law and regulations. We’d love to see this complaint system evolve into one that helps consumers self-help and self-educate as they submit their disputes.
2. Expand and promote websites that educate families about college finances: Our second wish for 2016 would be the promotion and expansion of Department of Education websites that help families determine which college would be the best social, educational and – arguably most importantly – financial fit. Two examples are the recently implemented College Scorecard and the older but still underused College Navigator tool.
Understanding the debt levels and potential incomes of a particular school and degree program can save so much financial stress and regret down the line. So can knowing a school’s graduation and student loan default rates.
In 2016, our wish is that every college freshman knows the average starting salary of his or her field of study, the anticipated total debt their degree will incur and an estimated post graduation budget.
3. Help for older borrowers: When talking about the student debt problem, the focus is usually on recent college graduates. But 35 percent of study loan holders are over the age of 40 and almost 20 percent are were older than 50. These are student loan borrowers that should be aggressively saving for retirement, or who are already retired and on a fixed income.
If the borrowing is parent loans taken on behalf of their children’s college education, the situation could be even more dire as parent PLUS borrowers are not eligible for most of the income driven repayment options available to other federal loan borrowers. If you consider that there’s no debt-to-income test for Parent PLUS loans, and no sanctions for schools with high Parent PLUS default rates or low repayment rates, you have a real potential for harm.
So, our third wish is that more options for relief be available to parent borrowers, as well as more thoughtful lending policies that are mindful of these borrowers’ future earning potential.
Source : http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/articles/2015-12-30/3-student-loan-wishes-for-2016