Assemblymember Watts Fights to Regulate Student Loans

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Assembly Bill 382, sponsored by Assemblyman Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas), would broadly follow the lead of over a dozen other states, which require student loan servicers to be licensed and regulated by the state, and student borrowers to be given a set of affirmative rights (commonly referred to as “Student Borrowers’ Bill of Rights”). The Nevada bill also goes beyond the traditional Borrowers’ Bill of Rights to include provisions regulating private lenders and forbidding schools from withholding transcripts because of debt.

Nationally, Americans owe $1.6 trillion in student loan debt—the largest category of household debt after mortgages, ahead of credit card debt. The overwhelming majority, over 90 percent, of student loan debt is owned by the federal government, and the remainder is owned by private companies that tend to provide riskier, more inflexible loans to borrowers.