The Department of Education will continue to reform how student loan debts are collected while strengthening oversight and enforcement, according to a published report citing a letter that was written by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to a pair of leading Senate Democrats.
The Department will also look to offer more targeted debt relief and address student loan servicing, according to the report.
The letter was written to Sen. Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.], the Senate Majority Leader, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.], one of the architects behind the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“I look forward to continuing to engage with you and your staff on these issues as we pursue these items,” Cardona wrote. “The actions we take in the coming months will be an important down payment on assisting the roughly 45 million Americans who have a federal student loan. But the department cannot go it alone to solve all these issues.”
Since taking over in January, the new leadership atop the Education Department has been reforming and overhauling the student loan program, including walking back guidance that had been put into place by the Trump administration that made it tougher for state regulators to obtain information from the Education Department and beefing up its regulatory and enforcement teams.
The Education Department last week announced that it was extending a collection moratorium on federal student loans through January 2022 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sen. Warren cited the “substantial reforms to the administration of the student loan program” when announcing she was removing her hold on the confirmation vote for James Kvaal to be the Undersecretary of Education, the Department’s top position that governs higher education.
