Holding up students for their transcripts

This has been going on for too long. Should never have been able to happen at all.

Colleges that lend directly to their students cannot later refuse to release students’ transcripts as a way of forcing them to make payments, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on (September 29), calling the practice “abusive” and a violation of federal law.

The loans made directly by a college, rather than a traditional lender, are used to pay for classes, but they don’t come with the same protections as federal student loans do. Hundreds of thousands of students at for-profit colleges have taken these loans, known as institutional loans, and some public and nonprofit institutions also offer them.

The consumer bureau’s ruling was aimed at stopping the colleges from withholding transcripts from students who haven’t repaid the debt. Some colleges refuse to release a student’s transcript until the full amount has been repaid, even when even when students had entered into a payment plan and is making regular payments. - Hechinger Report