The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau responded to Ms. DeVos’s memo with a pointed note saying
that borrowers “should be able to repay their debt without having to deal with illegal loan servicing practices.”
If the department does go forward with a single portal, Ms. DeVos’s memo seems to
improve Navient’s shot at winning the bid, according to procurement experts.
Under the Obama administration, the Education Department was on the verge of selecting a single vendor to build a new system
for servicing its student loans, in what was expected to be one of the largest federal contracts outside of the military.
But critics of Ms. DeVos’s move this week are especially concerned about a particular piece of guidance from the Obama administration she struck down:
that the Education Department should place great weight on a company’s track record when selecting student loan vendors, and should steer away from companies with histories of shoddy service or other problems.
DeVos Halts Obama-Era Plan to Revamp Student Loan Management -
By STACY COWLEY and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERGAPRIL 14, 2017
With the stroke of a pen this week, Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s new education secretary, thrust
the future of the government’s system for managing federal student loans into confusion.
Last April, the Education Department opened bidding to find a vendor to build
that system, and the winner would get a chance to construct the most visible government portal since HealthCare.gov.