(GDNS)- The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has closed the doors of its Office of Students, which had been created to handle consumer complaints about student-loan companies.
The Center for Responsible Lending says Americans have $1.4 trillion in student-loan debt, with the average student borrower owing $30-thousand when they graduate. Senior policy counsel Whitney Barkley-Denney says the office performed a vital service.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created after the Great Recession in an attempt to protect consumers from fraud and unscrupulous activities of lenders. Now, Barkley-Denney says it will fall on individual states to protect their residents.
Since it began, the agency has reclaimed $750-million from lenders that were using illegal practices. In an email sent to his staff, Mick Mulvaney, interim C-F-P-B director, said the agency would alter its mission to focus on providing consumers with information on their legal rights.
