NEW YORK (MainStreet) — In a March 10 speech to students at Georgia Tech, President Obama announced that he wants to make the process of repaying student loans easier to understand and manage.

Obama’s Student Aid Bill of Rights contains enhancements that include a more standardized role for loan servicers. Over 70% of American students who graduate with a bachelor's degree have close to $30,000 in student debt. Some 40 million of the nation's 310 million people have student loans worth over $1.2 trillion.

Student loan servicing essentially involves collecting loan payments. Obama wants disclosures that will more accurately identify the firm servicing a student's loan and explain how monthly payment plans are set and how they can be changed. Students can typically expect to have multiple loan servicers during the life of their loan. Servicers can also change without warning.

In addition, Obama expects the Department of Education (ED) to have institued ways to better address complaints from borrowers about lenders, servicers and collection agencies. It's not clear whether this would be in conflict with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's role in managing student loan complaints.

Meanwhile, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), says that while the Obama plan is good, it’s not good enough.

Durbin applauded Obama's decision to increase protections for people with both federal and private loans, but said that there was more that should be done to bring immediate relief to borrowers. Durbin wants borrowers to be able to write-off private student loans when they file for bankruptcy.

“Today’s announcement is a clear indication of President Obama’s commitment to student borrowers, and it is a commitment that we share," said Durbin, author of the Student Loan Borrower's Bill of Rights. He also seemed to place the onus on Congress to address the issues that Obama's plan left out.

"I commend the President’s action, but that doesn’t excuse Congress from addressing our national student debt crisis," he said. "Common-sense reforms like allowing students to refinance their federal student loan interest rates and restoring bankruptcy protections to private student borrowers are steps only Congress can take. I hope my Republican colleagues will join in a bipartisan effort to address this important issue.”

Durbin plans to introduce his Fairness for Struggling Students Act, which aims to allow students to discharge private student loans.

The 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act removed language in existing federal bankruptcy statutes that allowed privately issued student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy like nearly all other forms of private debt, such as credit cards and auto loans. While federal loans were never given this option, private student loans have vastly different terms and fewer consumer protections.

--Written by John Sandman for MainStreet