Americans are anxious about rapidly rising levels of student debt. They wonder whether payments are affordable and if financing college with debt will pay off in the end. But recent news suggest another issue is increasingly on borrower's minds: bad customer service and shoddy advice during loan repayment. This can leave borrowers feeling confused or cheated, and it can even lead them to incur additional costs. There is, however a risk in automatically blaming loan servicing companies over concerns that borrowers are being treated unfairly. The perceived mistreatment may actually be result of the design of the loan program itself, not in how loans are serviced. In such cases, Congress and the U.S. Department of Education are responsible for the problem--and the solution. This testimony will focus on this important distinction. To that end, the author will outline a number of ways in which features of the federal student loan program--all of which are set in statute and regulation--can confuse and frustrate borrowers and even leave them feeling cheated. To the borrower, it often appears that loan servicers designed these problematic policies and practices when in fact lawmakers are often to blame. The matter is further complicated by the fact that these loan policies and mandated servicing practices are meant to benefit borrowers. That makes fixing the program challenging, since almost any reform aimed at improving the system could reduce benefits for borrowers.