CFPB bans Navient from student loan servicing, orders $120M payment

Yesterday, the CFPB announced it has filed a proposed stipulated final judgment and order against the student loan servicer Navient for years of failures and lawbreaking. If entered by the court, the proposed order would permanently ban the company from servicing federal Direct Loans and would forbid the company from directly servicing or acquiring most loans under the Federal Family Education Loan Program . These bans would largely remove Navient from a market where it, among other illegal actions, steered numerous student loan borrowers into costly repayment options. Navient also illegally deprived student borrowers of opportunities to enroll in more affordable income-driven repayment plans and forced them to pay much more than they should have. Under the terms of the order, Navient would have to pay a $20 million penalty and provide $100 million in redress for harmed borrowers.

The CFPB’s investigation of Navient kicked off a series of efforts by state and federal agencies to examine forbearance steering and other breakdowns in the income-driven repayment program. Those efforts have resulted in more than $50 billion in debt relief for more than 1 million borrowers who were wrongly steered into forbearance, as well as those who had payments miscounted. Yesterday’s order complements actions already taken by the Department of Education and state attorneys general to provide redress to borrowers harmed by Navient.

According to the CFPB’s press release, Navient is a repeat offender with a long history of regulatory violations. After a referral from the CFPB, in 2014, the Department of Justice and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ordered Navient and its predecessor, Sallie Mae, to pay almost $100 million for illegally overcharging nearly 78,000 servicemembers. In 2021, the Department of Education ordered Navient to return more than $22 million in overcharges. In 2022, 39 state attorneys general announced a $1.85 billion settlement with Navient for originating predatory student loans in addition to its forbearance steering practices.

In 2021, Navient’s contract with the Department of Education to service Direct Loans finally ended. Navient announced in early 2024 that it intended to transfer the servicing of its remaining loans to another servicer.