Education Finance Council, a national trade association representing state-based nonprofit higher education finance organizations, has asked the Department of Education to “publicly state” that the ED’s rules governing servicers of federal student loans preempt state laws and regulations that would impose conflicting requirements on such servicers.
In a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, EFC expresses concern that state efforts to impose regulations on student loan servicers contracted by the federal government to service federal student loans threaten “to add an unnecessary web of regulations which are both duplicative and potentially contradictory to existing federal regulations and policies.” EFC notes that the ED has previously “made clear its position on the preeminence of federal law in student loan servicing,” and asks the ED to make it clear “to both the public and to state entities that seek to impose their own conflicting regulations on federal student loan servicing contractors” that federal law takes precedence in the event of a conflict between federal and state laws.
