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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a blockbuster lawsuit against Navient Corporation, the nation's largest student loan servicer handling over $300 billion in federal and private loans for more than 12 million borrowers (over a quarter of all student loan borrowers). The lawsuit alleged Navient systematically and illegally failed borrowers at every stage of repayment by providing bad information, processing payments incorrectly, and ignoring complaints. Most critically, Navient steered struggling borrowers who qualified for income-driven repayment plans into forbearance instead, because forbearance was cheaper and simpler for Navient but devastating for borrowers. This illegal practice caused borrowers to pay additional interest charges as interest continued to accrue and capitalize during forbearance periods. The lawsuit revealed Navient created obstacles to repayment through shortcuts and deception, illegally cheating struggling borrowers out of their rights to lower monthly payments. Navient was a repeat offender with a long regulatory history: in 2014, the DOJ and FDIC ordered Navient and its predecessor Sallie Mae to pay $100 million for illegally overcharging 78,000 servicemembers. The CFPB lawsuit was followed by state attorney general lawsuits from Illinois, Washington, Pennsylvania, California, and Mississippi. Navient's abuses demonstrated how student loan servicers systematically exploited borrowers for profit while being paid by the federal government to help those same borrowers. The lawsuit came just days before Trump's inauguration, and the subsequent gutting of CFPB enforcement would delay resolution for seven years until Navient was finally banned from federal loan servicing in 2024.