Legislature Passes Bill of Rights for Student Loan Borrowers

ST. CLOUD -- The Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights is what they are calling a new law passed in the 2021 legislative session.

The law provides protections to Minnesotans repaying student loans. It requires servicers of loans to be licensed by the Minnesota Department of Commerce. It also mandates that the servicers be responsive to borrowers requesting information.

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State Representative Zach Stephenson is one of the law's authors and spoke at a news conference at St. Cloud Technical and Community College today Friday. He says the law provides vital protections to borrowers.

The protections in this bill are not onerous on servicers. It's things they absolutely should be doing already. But, the fact is this bill is necessary because often times they aren't. We heard story after story from students in the legislature over the last several years about students who were mistreated and abused by their student loan servicers.

The law requires loan servicers to be responsive to borrowers after written communications.

They will also be prohibited from providing misleading information, misapplying payments, and refusing to communicate with authorized representatives of borrowers.

According to the state Office of Higher Education, 65 percent of Minnesotans graduating with a bachelor's degree have debt averaging about $25 thousand.