Frustrated watchdog of student loans quits

NEW YORK — The government's top official overseeing the $1.5 trillion student-loan market resigned in protest Monday, citing what he says is the White House's open hostility toward protecting the nation's millions of studentloan borrowers.

Seth Frotman will be stepping down as student-loan ombudsman at the end of the week, according to his resignation letter. He held that position since 2016 but has been with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since its inception in 2011.

Frotman is the latest highlevel departure from the CFPB since Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump's budget director, took over in late November from Ohioan Richard Cordray.

Frotman's office was at the center of the lawsuits against for-profit colleges and currently is heading up a lawsuit between the CFPB and Navient, one of the largest student lenders. The Navient suit has been mired in red tape as the Department of Education has been unwilling to help the CFPB with it.

"You have used the bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America," Frotman wrote in his letter to Mulvaney. "The damage you have done to the bureau betrays these families and sacrifices the financial futures of millions of Americans in communities across the country."

Since its creation, the student-loan office has returned $750 million to harmed borrowers. Despite that, Mulvaney downgraded the mission of Frotman's office this summer and moved it under the umbrella of consumer education instead of enforcement. Consumer advocates saw it as a move to downplay the CFPB's mission when it came to student loans.

Frotman also accused Mulvaney and his staff of hiding a report that raised alarms that banks were overcharging borrowers.

A CFPB spokesman said the agency does not "comment on specific personnel matters."