According to a report released on March 1, 2016 by the Education Department’s Inspector General, the agency conducted a review of its student loan servicers but it was deeply flawed, and they knowingly misled the public about the results.
The charges being leveled against the department stem from an audit administered after the Justice Department fined student loan servicer Navient Solutions $60 million in 2014 for unlawfully charging active-duty service members high interest rates on student loans. To ensure the violations were not widespread, then-Education Secretary Arne Duncan pledged to review all loan servicers’ records and later said there was little evidence of any wrongdoing.
The report rebuts those claims and paints the department’s investigation as shortsighted and inaccurate. The inspector general said the agency used an inadequate sample of loans to draw conclusions about whether its four largest servicers — Navient, Great Lakes, Nelnet and American Education Services — were complying with a law that caps interest rates for active-duty troops at 6 percent.
Read More: The Washington Post