DeVos on Student Loan Woes: I Won’t Fix It, So You Deal With It
Washington D.C. — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made a rare public appearance in Reno, NV today, but not to apologize for her Department’s recent illegal mistreatment of student borrowers. Instead, in a desperate and transparent effort to distract from her Department’s failures to hold the student loan servicing industry accountable or address the $1.5 trillion student debt crisis, DeVos rolled out a shiny new object: a call on Congress to make the Office of Federal Student Aid an independent, stand-alone agency separate from the Education Department. Derek Martin, director of consumer watchdog group Allied Progress made the following statement in response:
“Secretary DeVos wasn’t kidding when she scoffed at her confirmation hearing, ‘It would be fine with me to have myself worked out of a job.’ The Secretary has since demonstrated she has no interest in fixing the systemic problems within the FSA that have allowed student loan servicers to cheat and abuse student borrowers who are drowning in debt. Her Department’s non-existent oversight and steady stream of deregulatory proposals designed to protect the servicer industry made that clear. Now the Secretary thinks she can wipe her hands clean of responsibility and pass the buck to Congress to fix the problems she’s only made worse. Rather that working herself out of a job, the Secretary is taking a note from her boss and dumping responsibility onto others.”
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