Washington, DC, United States (ProPublica) – by Marian Wang

It was with some fanfare that the Obama administration announced last fall that it was ramping up a program to help students with federal loans reduce their monthly payments. Under the program, payments are adjusted based on how much students earn — what’s known as income-based repayment.

Yet, even while the administration has emphasized easing the burden for student borrowers, some contractors with the Department of Education appear to be exacerbating it.

Bloomberg reported this week that some federally contracted debt collection agencies have been playing hardball with borrowers who are behind:

insisting on payments the borrowers can’t afford;

even when federal student-loan rules allow more leniency.

The debt collectors have an incentive to be tough. As Bloomberg explains:

Under Education Department contracts, collection companies “rehabilitate” a defaulted loan by getting a borrower to make nine payments in 10 months. If they succeed, they reap a jackpot: a commission equal to as much as 16 percent of the entire loan amount, or $3,200 on a $20,000 loan.

These companies receive that fee only if borrowers make a minimum payment of 0.75 percent to 1.25 percent of the loan each month, depending on its size. For example, a $20,000 loan would require payments of about $200 a month. If the payment falls below that figure, the collector receives an administrative fee of $150.

The Department of Education is trying to balance its interest in helping struggling borrowers and stewarding taxpayer dollars, department spokesman Justin Hamilton told Bloomberg.

Striking that balance, it seems, hasn’t been easy. Consumer advocates chafed when President Obama, as part of a deficit-reduction plan promoted last fall, recommended allowing debt collectors to robo-call the cell phones of borrowers who fell behind on federal student loans and other debts to the government.

That plan didn’t get far. But the measure resurfaced as a line item in Obama’s proposed 2013 budget last month.

As Bloomberg noted, federal student-loan rules require that collectors work out “reasonable and affordable” payments with borrowers to get them back on track, but the rules don’t spell out how such a calculation should be made. The Department of Education is meeting with key student-loan stakeholders this week to discuss, among other things , whether to use the income-based repayment formula to help set that standard. (As it stands, only borrowers who are current on their federal loans are eligible for help via income-based repayment.)

One thing that isn’t on the table at these rule-making meetings? A measure hailed by some advocates as potentially the single most important rule change for student borrowers who’ve become severely disabled and are seeking a discharge of their federal student loans. As we reported last year, the department initially pledged to overhaul the program and consider whether to simply accept Social Security determinations of disability instead of its current complex and opaque process. The department subsequently backed off that fix. Now it isn’t even on the agenda .

– Provided by ProPublica.org

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Lansing, MI, United States (AHN) – Michigan removed its assistant attorney general, Andrew Shirvell, on Monday for attacking a gay student leader, actions that had prompted condemnation from local officials and the University of Michigan to ban the state official from campus

Shirvell, 30, was fired after a two-day disciplinary hearing on allegations he had harassed and stalked Chris Armstrong, the first openly gay president of the University of Michigan’s student assembly.

The former assistant attorney general had said he was exercising his First Amendment rights during his personal time. But Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who previously defended Shirvell’s free speech rights, said Shirvell was removed because he harassed Armstrong and lied to investigators during the hearings.

Cox cited three visits Shirvell made to the student’s home, one at 1:30 am. Shirvell had also followed Armstrong while the student was out with friends in Ann Arbor, and made calls to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, where Armstrong was an intern, in an attempt to have the student fired.

Officials also found that Shirvell had posted attacks against the student on the Internet while he was at work. The online posts, however, were not themselves cited for Shirvell’s removal from office.

“To be clear, I refuse to fire anyone for exercising their First Amendment rights, regardless of how popular or unpopular their positions might be,” Cox said in a statement to the Detroit Free Press. “However, Shirvell repeatedly violated office policies, engaged in borderline stalking behavior, and inappropriately used state resources, our investigation showed.”

Shirvell’s lawyer told the Free Press that the decision to remove the assistant attorney general seemed “political.” The former state official still faces the possibility of being unable to practice law in the state as Armstrong has asked the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission to disbar him.

A University of Michigan graduate, Shirvell began a blog in April called “Chris Armstrong Watch” in which he called the student a “radical homosexual activist, racist, elitist, & liar” and “Satan’s representative on the Student Assembly.”

He warned parents to “beware: the University’s first openly ‘gay’ student body president…. is actively recruiting your sons and daughters to join the homosexual ‘lifestyle.’ “

The blog, which can now only be seen by invited readers, showed photos of Armstrong with swastikas digitally added to his face.

The university banned Shirvell four months later, in early September, after Armstrong requested a personal protection order against the state official for harassing and stalking him. Officials modified the trespass warning last week to allow Shirvell access to the Ann Arbor campus so long as he has no physical or verbal contact with Armstrong.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission had adopted a resolution urging the removal of Shirvell. The Ann Arbor city council had also condemned Shirvell’s actions, which gained national attention amid growing concerns about the spate of suicides by teens allegedly harassed for their sexual orientation.

One of the victims was a Rutgers University music student, Tyler Clementi, who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate and another student secretly videotaped him having sex with a man inside his dorm room and streamed the encounter online.

Shirvell’s removal also comes a little over a week after an Arkansas school official was forced to resign because of national uproar over his emotionally charged comments on Facebook mocking gays and the teens who committed suicide.

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London, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Officials of the Thames Valley District School Board ordered a tightening of internet security over the weekend after the passwords of 27,000 high school students were exposed.

The students’ passwords, grades and schedules were made available on a page on popular social networking site Facebook. After the incident, which took place Wednesday, the board temporarily shut down the website the following day.

The computer system upgrade is expected to be finished in a few weeks. The upgrade would encrypt the passwords and webpages for students.

Valerie Nielsen, superintendent of education responsible for information technology of the board, advised students who use the same passwords in their other accounts, such as private emails or other social networking sites, to change their password information as soon as possible.

Police from London, Ontario, are probing how the hacking was done.

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