Who’s Profiting From $1.2 Trillion of Federal Student Loans?

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Who’s Profiting From $1.2 Trillion of Federal Student Loans?

December 12th, 2015

Awake Goy

Source: Bloomberg

Jody Sofia borrowed $92,500 to get a degree from Florida Coastal School of Law. Now she’s in default, her outstanding balance having ballooned to almost $144,000, and she spends her days fielding calls from government-contracted debt collectors.

The companies making those calls are just one part of an ecosystem feeding on federal student loans. There are also debt servicers, refinance lenders, firms that help former students stay out of default and for-profit schools that make money as borrowers try to repay more than $1.2 trillion in government-backed education debt.

Sofia is one of 7 million former students in default on a record $115 billion of federal loans, an amount that has grown almost 25 percent in two years, according to U.S. government data. The mountain of debt, for which taxpayers are on the hook, has provided a stream of revenue to companies at every stage of the process.

“This is not some small cottage industry,” said Rohit Chopra, the former student-loan ombudsman for the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which oversees loan servicers, debt collectors and private student lenders. “There is a large student-loan industrial complex. Rising costs of college and flat family incomes have created enormous business opportunity for every step of the loan process.”