Within the federal government, there is an agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which is charged with protecting consumers (read: Americans) from unfair and fraudulent practices by businesses, banks, and really anybody that takes your money. Within the CFPB, there is a student loan protection office that specializes in protecting students and past students from bad actors in the student loan sector.

And it’s a huge sector. It’s estimated the office covers 44 million Americans with over $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. In recent years, the CFPB is credited with $750 million in relief to Americans who fell prey to bad student loan practices.

So, we were very concerned to learn that Director Mick Mulvaney announced yesterday that the office of student loan protects at CFPB will be closing. This critical office charged with protecting students against predatory loan companies and institutions will no longer be open for business.

While the CFPB’s student loan protection office covers any student with student loans, this particularly worrisome for our community, as over 60 percent of IAVA members have pursued a degree since separating from the military. Almost half of IAVA members who went to school took out loans for their education, according to our latest survey. Twenty-five percent of IAVA members took out over $15,000 in student loans.

This is very bad news for student veterans. IAVA stands with Veterans Education Success and our VSO partners on this urgent call for a reversal. Constant vigilance will be required by all to protect student veterans and #DefendTheGIBill. This destructive move is another reason IAVA made defending education benefits a top priority in our Big 6 Advocacy Priorities for 2018.

We encourage President Trump to reverse this harmful decision and stand with IAVA members and allies nationwide.

Find out more about our Big 6 Priorities and what you can do to protect education benefits here. Help us fight the good fight and tweet out the following to show your opposition for the closure of the CFPB student loan office:

“The closure of the student loan office at @CFPB is unacceptable. I stand with @iava and @GIBillRights to #DefendTheGIBill and call on @MickMulvaneyOMB and @realDonaldTrump to reverse this destructive decision that hurts veterans.”