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Written from an interview by Jenny Faubert with Mary Lyn Hammer, President and CEO, Champion College Services and Education Advocate
Mary Lyn Hammer said she vacillated between rage and sorrow when she felt the U.S. Department of Education forced one of her client’s schools to unjustly close. But instead of just being mad or sad, she vowed to dig deep and discover what had really happened.
The result is her special report, “Injustice for All,” which was hand delivered to key members of Congress the week of Jan. 5, and went on sale to the public on Jan. 22. Hammer hopes “Injustice for All” will help to stabilize the education industry and inspire productive reform.
“I want Congress to take this information seriously,” she said. “They’re going into Reauthorization and the next Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act is going to be in six years; the laws need to be written based on the truth, not on some manufactured agenda or data. That’s the only way we’re going to get quality education, and our kids deserve that.”
She also hopes her report will make the DOE correct all of the schools’ default rates, and not just the ones that are subject to sanctions. Lastly, and most importantly, she hopes “Injustice for All” will get students’ loans wrongly defaulted during the transition to 100 percent direct lending put back into good standing and their good credit ratings restored.
“The bottom line is that Congress needs to take these kids out of default and clean up their credit scores—period,” Hammer said. “Besides, it will save taxpayers money because there are at least two servicing fees being paid for those students who have one or more current loans and one or more defaulted loans.”
