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Student Loans
Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights
The Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights provides protections for Minnesotans who have student loans that are serviced by providers identified in the law.
Summary of your rights as a borrower
Basics about Student Loans: Paying for College
What type of practices do student loan servicers have to follow?
DO’s
- Acknowledge written communication from a borrower within 10 days and respond within 30 days
- Confirm how borrowers would like to have an overpayment applied
- Apply partial payments in a way to minimize late fees or negative impact on a borrower’s credit history
- When transferring a loan to another servicer, ensure a borrower still receives any benefits granted, and transfer all information to the new servicer within certain time periods
- Prior to placing a borrower in default, must evaluate a borrower for eligibility for an income-driven repayment program
DON’T’s
- No attempts to mislead a borrower
- No unfair, deceptive, or misrepresented information related to the loan servicing
- No false statements or omission of material fact for applications, information or reports
- No misapplication of payments either knowingly or negligently
- No inaccurate information provided to a consumer reporting agency either knowingly or negligently, and not fail to report both favorable and unfavorable payment history in annual reports
- No refusal to communicate with authorized representatives of a borrower
- No misrepresentation of availability of student loan forgiveness programs the servicer has reason to know the borrower is eligible for
What is required from student loan servicers and what can Commerce do?
- Loan servicers must get a license from the Department of Commerce (subject to exemptions)
- To ensure loan servicers are operating in a safe and sound manner, Commerce will conduct periodic examinations of each loan servicer
- Commerce will review consumer complaints about student loan servicers and conduct investigations into loan servicer practices that may violate various requirements of the law
Where can I get more information or how do I file a complaint?
Please to go to the License Lookup Page for information on the law and how to look up licensees