HR7671-119

What This Bill Does

The Students and Young Consumers Empowerment Act replaces the CFPB's private-education-loan ombudsman structure with an Assistant Director and Student Loan Borrower Advocate who heads a new Office for Students and Young Consumers. The office accepts complaints involving federal or private student loans, including complaints against lenders, servicers, and debt collectors; educates students and families; coordinates consumer protection; and analyzes student-finance markets.

Within 60 days, the CFPB and Education Department officials must execute a memorandum of understanding that coordinates complaint assistance and gives the Bureau access to relevant Department systems, records, contractor data, and databases. Congress must be notified if the Assistant Director position or the memorandum remains vacant or lapsed for at least 60 days.

The Assistant Director must report annually on student-loan complaints and market risks, campus banking arrangements and fees, and risks identified in young-consumer complaints. The office may gather information from examinations, complaints, surveys, interviews, and databases. On the Assistant Director's recommendation, the CFPB Director must require covered firms and service providers to submit reports, written answers, or other market information. That market-monitoring authority may not be used to collect personally identifiable financial records merely for gathering or analysis.

The bill separately requires operational cooperation between the CFPB and Education Department. The agencies must exchange examination and review schedules, meet quarterly, align complaint categories, transfer student-loan complaints, securely exchange complaint data, coordinate collection-agency issues, and divide responsibility for federal and private loan complaints. Education may not enter a new Title IV servicing agreement unless the contractor agrees to provide the CFPB, on request, information it must provide Education.

The bill authorizes limited redisclosure of specified tax-return information to the CFPB and adds authorized CFPB-Education disclosures to the Privacy Act. The agencies must adopt memoranda and safeguards restricting nonpublic data to personnel with a need to know and protecting privacy, security, and integrity. Each agency bears its own compliance costs unless a separate interagency agreement transfers funds for goods or services. Savings clauses preserve existing authority, additional memoranda, valid court orders, and compulsory congressional demands.

Who Benefits and How

Federal and private student-loan borrowers receive coordinated complaint assistance and fewer agency handoffs. Young consumers and families receive a dedicated CFPB office, education initiatives, and market-risk analysis. Congress receives annual student-loan, campus-banking, and young-consumer reports plus vacancy notices. CFPB supervisors gain access to Education and contractor data, while Education complaint staff gain CFPB consumer-law expertise. Student data subjects receive express access controls and federal privacy safeguards.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Student-loan lenders, servicers, debt collectors, campus financial-product providers, and Education contractors face expanded reporting, examination, complaint-response, and data-production exposure. CFPB and Education staff must build interoperable processes, transfer complaints within deadlines, meet quarterly, secure nonpublic information, and maintain multiple memoranda. Title IV servicing contractors must accept CFPB information access as a contract condition. Student borrowers whose data moves between agencies face residual privacy risk despite required safeguards. CFPB and Education accounts bear their own implementation costs.

Key Provisions

• Establishes a CFPB Assistant Director and Student Loan Borrower Advocate.
• Creates an Office for Students and Young Consumers.
• Requires a CFPB-Education memorandum of understanding within 60 days.
• Expands complaint resolution to federal and private student loans.
• Requires annual student-loan, campus-banking, and young-consumer reports.
• Authorizes market monitoring and mandatory firm information requests.
• Requires shared examination schedules, quarterly meetings, and complaint transfers.
• Conditions new Title IV servicing contracts on CFPB information access.
• Authorizes specified interagency tax and Privacy Act disclosures.
• Requires need-to-know access controls and federal data-security safeguards.
• Preserves existing agency authority and assigns each agency its own costs.