Testimony

The growth of outstanding student loan debt over the last decade has been staggering. Today, more than 44 million people carry over $1.5 trillion of outstanding student loan debt, an amount that exceeds all other types of non-mortgage loan debt. Two out of three graduates in the class of 2017 borrowed federal student loan debt to finance their education.2 This...

Homeownership is the primary way that most middle-class families build wealth and achieve economic stability. Wide access to credit is critical for building family wealth, closing the racial wealth gap, and for the housing market overall, which in turn, contributes significantly to our overall economy. Today, the opportunity to purchase, maintain and refinance a home has not reached significant portions...

On April 30, 2019, the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions convened a hearing on “ Ending Debt Traps in the Payday and Small Dollar Credit Industry.” Download the full written and oral testimony of CRL's Diane Standaert below: Download the full testimony. (PDF) Download the oral testimony. (PDF) Watch Diane Standaert's opening statement and...

While today's hearing importantly focuses on payday lending as a civil rights concern, it occurs within the context of a two-tiered financial services system rooted in a long history of discrimination on the basis of race. Nationally, payday lenders strip away over $4 billion a year from consumers through unaffordable loans carrying annual interest rates of 300% or higher. In...

Our Housing Finance System and the GSEs provide essential services to families and lenders across the country. Rural borrowers, small lenders and lower wealth borrowers particularly benefit from these services because the GSEs provide access to a national market, making home loans more affordable overall. The GSEs, though, had critical flaws leading up to the crisis. Since then, fundamental reforms...

This written testimony focuses on three key areas of concern in support of HB 2588 to protect Oregonians from abusive practices by student education loan servicers: Oregon’s student loan debt crisis deepens the racial wealth gap and harms older Oregonians Abuses by student loan servicers prolong and deepen the student loan debt crisis, further increasing the racial wealth gap and...

This written testimony focuses on three key areas of concern: 1) abuses by student loan servicers prolong and deepen the problem of student loan debt; 2) For-profit schools disproportionately drive student loan debt nationally and in Colorado; and 3) the federal rollback of existing protections bolsters the need for state action. Download the full testimony. (PDF)

For-profit schools target students of color, low-income students, women, and veterans for enrollment, while failing to provide a quality education enabling students to obtain gainful employment. As is described below, New York for-profit students are more likely to have higher debt loads, lower graduation rates, and higher default rates than other students in the state. Consequently, an inordinate number of...

This important hearing addresses how technological innovation has resulted in the development of new services and delivery platforms by both traditional financial institutions and non-bank fintech companies. The rapid expansion of market participants and their products has brought new opportunities, as well as significant consumer protection concerns, to the financial marketplace. In my written testimony I will discuss in detail...

Both the GSEs and Ginnie Mae continue to provide critical mortgage capital to underserved communities. The GSEs purchased more than two million homes and refinance mortgage loans in 2015, including almost half a million loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers, nearly 400,000 loans to borrowers of color and over 300,000 loans to borrowers living in rural areas. At the same...