WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unveiled the student loan Payback Playbook, a set of prototype disclosures that outline a path to affordable payments for borrowers trying to avoid student debt distress. The Payback Playbook provides borrowers with personalized information about their repayment options from loan servicers so they can secure a monthly payment they can afford. The Payback Playbook would be available to borrowers on their monthly bills, in regular email communications from their student loan servicers, or when they log into their student loan accounts.

“Millions of consumers needlessly fall behind on their student loan debt, despite their right under federal law to a payment they can afford,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “The Payback Playbook, which has grown out of our joint work with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and her colleagues, is designed to help ensure student loan servicers provide personalized information, tailored to the borrower’s individual situation. This will help these borrowers take action, stay on track, and steer clear of financial distress.“

View the Payback Playbook prototypes at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201604_cfpb_student-loan-playbooks-website.pdf

About 43 million Americans owe student loan debt, with outstanding debt estimated at $1.3 trillion. The Department of Education offers numerous plans to borrowers with federal student loans that help make payments more affordable

Errors hurt your chances of a loan, and may make lenders charge you more $

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Member of Congress Don Beyer (from Virginia) is an auto dealer-owner who supports the removal of forced arbitration from consumer contracts.
Here are comments he had published in the Congressional Record.

FORCED ARBITRATION
a speech in Congress by Rep. Donald Beyer (D-VA), on Apr 19, 2016
Full Text Below, adapted from the Congressional Record.
 
Mr. Speaker, I stand here today to express my opposition to the increasing use of forced or binding arbitration. Most Americans don't even know about forced or binding arbitration until it happens to them.
 
Clauses are buried in the fine print of everyday contracts and, before they know it, they are unknowingly compelled to give up their legal rights. Quite honestly, if we just take into consideration human behavior--most Americans don't read the fine print even if they know they should. And let's assume that if they did, I guarantee you most don't have enough of legal background to recognize problem language when they read it.
 
This is concerning and dangerous when we consider that arbitration clauses are increasingly being inserted into consumer and employment contracts. This allows companies to circumvent the courts and bars people from joining together in class-action lawsuits. And class action law suits are realistically one of the few tools citizens have to fight illegal or deceitful business practices.
 
Applying for a credit card, using a cellphone, getting cable or Internet service and you are likely agreeing to private arbitration unknowingly. This is concerning because arbitration is heavily weighted in favor of the more powerful party. Not only does the corporation that wrote the contract set the terms of arbitration, but it also often decides on the arbitrator. Arbitrators do not have to be trained in the law, nor are they required to follow the law.
 
Quite simply, arbitration lacks many of the fundamental guarantees of fairness that a court provides. As a small business owner, I view binding arbitration as plainly unfair to the consumer and also unnecessary in the operation of a successful business practice. My business currently operates successfully without engaging in the same predatory practice for consumers.
 
Lawyers can continually put together more sophisticatedly drafted agreements meaning courts routinely enforce such agreements. That means we have a legally enforceable culture that is reinforcing these one-sided provisions which unfairly tilt the playing field in favor of one party. This is a practice we must stop. I am here to say we must stop it. Let us stop this predatory practice on consumers and bid binding arbitration a farewell.