• Navient is moving 6 million student loan borrower accounts to Maximus next year.

• Senator Elizabeth Warren expressed concern about how borrowers will be treated under the new company.

• But Maximus said in a statement he agrees with Warren and that a smooth transition is “imperative.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren has had a contentious decade-long relationship with student loan companies over their treatment of borrowers. But when it comes to ensuring a smooth transition to repayment next year, one of those companies said it agreed with the Massachusetts Democrat.

Navient, a student loan company that currently serves 6 million federal borrowers, announcement in October that he would end his federal contract with the Department of Education and transfer accounts to a new company, Maximus. This was good news for Warren, who has had Navient in his sights for years on corporate practices that pushed borrowers into more debt.

“Navient has spent decades deceiving, cheating and abusing student borrowers,” Warren said previously Insider in a press release. “The federal student loans program will be much better off without them.”

But his forgetting did not stop there. Last month she sent a letter to Maximus to ensure that borrowers will not be subjected to the same “abusive practices” they were under Navient, and she requested information from the company on how it would facilitate a smooth transition for borrowers that she accepts.

In a statement to Insider, Maximus spokeswoman Eileen Rivera responded: “This is a watershed moment for student borrowers, and we cannot agree more with Senator Warren – it is imperative that we let’s do it right. “

Rivera added that the company is working to answer Warren’s questions and ensure that Warren and his staff “share the Department of Education’s trust in us as the service of these student loan transitions from Navient to Maximus ”.

The story continues

Navient is one of three companies who announced plans to end federal services, and in October, Federal Student Aid (FSA) chief Richard Cordray noted in a statement that the remaining student loan companies – including Maximus – must be held to higher standards.

“FSA raises the bar for the level of service student loan borrowers will receive,” Cordray noted. “Our actions come at a critical time as we help borrowers prepare for the resumption of loan repayments early next year. The excellent work done by our negotiating team here allows us to ensure that the services loans meet or suffer the consequences. “

Rivera also added that Maximus will remain “independent and conflict-free as we do not and will never provide loan origination, consolidation or collection services.”

The “conflict” she referred to is something that was common at Navient and other loan companies. Warren posted a Audit in 2018, this provided proof that Navient had made students take on more debt by “forcing student borrowers to abstain when it was often the worst financial option for them.”

And borrowers have also been pointed in the wrong direction when it comes to loan repayments. Lindsay Averbrook, 38 with $ 81,000 in student debt, previously Recount Insider, she was “turned down about 15 times” when trying to ask for help paying off her debt.

It remains to be seen how smooth the transition to reimbursement will be, but a spokesperson for the Department of Education has already Recount Insider, the department “will continue to work to ensure that all of our borrowers can benefit from a successful return to repayment.”

Read the original article on Business intern