The collateral consequences of ending up on the wrong side of America’s criminal legal system are increasingly recognized as wide-ranging and harmful. Incarceration or even simply a criminal record can limit nearly every aspect of a person’s life even after their sentence ends, interfering with the ability to keep or get a job and support…
The Center for Law and Policy and National Consumer Law Center President Biden ran on an agenda that included student debt relief for the more than 44 million borrowers who collectively owe over $1.6 trillion. This would be in line with the Biden Administration’s racial equity goals, as it would include relief for the millions…
When a college education is cut short by a school closure or a school engages in fraud, the students and their families suffer long-term financial distress. Higher education fraud, when unaddressed, devastates families and their communities, disproportionately impacting low-income, people of color, and women, who start out economically disadvantaged. In recent years, several large for-profit…
Read More about How States Can Help Students Harmed by Higher Education Fraud
Even before COVID-19, student loan borrowers struggled under the weight of more than $1.6 trillion in debt. One in four borrowers was in default or serious delinquency, and many worried about their ability to make student loan payments while covering other basic needs. Because of decades of structural inequities and discrimination, student loans have burdened…
Year after year, the federal government seizes Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) refund checks from the working poor to repay federal student loans that are in default, and the consequences for working families are devastating. Even this year, during a global pandemic and in the midst of record unemployment, the U.S. Department of Education has…
