The U.S. Education Department (ED) is angering its critics further by announcing a pay raise for its preferred student loan lender.

According to the Huffington Post, an ED official confirmed the increase in pay while speaking with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the most outspoken of the aforementioned critics. Sallie Mae and Navient Corp. have stood accused by multiple government agencies of intentionally cheating members of the military and employing deceptive practices to incur late fees for borrowers.

Navient recently paid $139 million to settle a Justice Department probe into allegations the student loan lender violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), the HP previously reported. Since, the ED has rewarded Navient, an affiliate of Sallie Mae, with continued business and now a pay raise.

"Let me get this straight: You break the law. You don't follow the rules. You treat the borrowers badly," Warren said, according to the HP. "And you all just renegotiated the contracts to make sure that across the portfolio [loan servicers] are going to make a little more money if nothing changes?"

Warren has been an outspoken critic of the ED and how it continues to give its business to Sallie Mae despite the lender's actions. In Dec., she even called the ED "lapdogs" for sticking by a company it knows to have committed such violations of borrowers' rights.

Warren said the ED's continued business with Sallie Mae and Navient is in direct opposition with the Obama Administration's pledge to make college more affordable and accessible for middle-class families. An ED spokesman told the HP the department had received a letter from Warren and will respond, declining to comment on the matter.

"While the government has been quite tolerant of Sallie Mae's failings and helped Sallie Mae maintain its profitability, it is not nearly as generous when it comes to student borrowers," Warren said. "Where is that kind of accountability for Sallie Mae?"

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