U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Headquarters in Washington, February 2, 2025.
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Federal student loan borrowers filed a record number of complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from mid-2024 to mid-2025, according to the bureau’s recent report.
But the government’s 21-page report, released in early January, omits details about the nature of the borrowers’ complaints, including the issues faced, the loan servicers involved and the remedies available, that were included in a draft of the 36-page report obtained by CNBC.
“It’s unfortunate that the report was never made public in its entirety,” said Julia Barnard, a former student loan ombudsman who resigned from the CFPB in October. Bernard, who drafted the report, told CNBC that CFPB leadership’s decision to omit her findings was the reason she parted ways with the agency.
“Because such reporting is censored, private organizations and the Department of Education have less opportunity to correct their mistakes,” Barnard said. Less information available to the public limits accountability for government agencies, she said.
The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment from CNBC. In January, an agency spokesperson described Bernard as a “disgruntled” former employee in comments to Politico and said the draft “does not meet any statutory requirements for a report.”
Bernard disputed that explanation.
“I did exactly what the statute required me to do: compile and research complaint trends, make policy recommendations, and present a reflection of the office’s activities and effectiveness over the previous year,” she said.
According to the Congressional Research Service, more than 42 million Americans have student loans, totaling more than $1.6 trillion in debt. Student loan borrowers are facing a flurry of changes to federal lending programs and difficulty accessing relief programs under the Trump administration.
Congress created the CFPB in 2010 and gave the watchdog the mission of protecting consumers from fraud in the financial markets. The Trump administration has sought to scale back the CFPB’s enforcement activities and reduce the agency’s staffing and funding, but many of these measures have been challenged in court.
“At a time when millions of borrowers are defaulting on their loans and the Trump administration is shredding the student loan safety net, the decision to throw out this report, one of the most critical of the Trump Department of Education and the student loan industry, tells a grim story,” said Mike Pearce, former senior adviser to the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman and executive director of the advocacy group Protect Borrowers. Mr Pearce has seen both the published report and the draft.
“It’s important to know the details of complaints.”
Nadine Chabrier, senior policy and litigation counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit organization that advocates for fair lending practices, said it was notable how much less reliable the bureau’s latest report was than previous versions. For example, the report issued in October 2020 during President Donald Trump’s first term was a 66-page file that included extensive details about the nature of borrower complaints.
“It is important to understand the details of complaints to identify patterns, understand consequences, and develop solutions,” Chabrier said.
The reduction in the report on the status of student loans comes as the number of delinquent students increases. According to estimates from Protect Borrowers, approximately 9 million people are currently behind on their education loans.
Under the Trump administration, hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers have been inundated with applications and have waited more than a year in some cases to obtain affordable repayment plans and loan forgiveness mandated by the terms of their loans.
Student loan complaints are up 36%, according to the CFPB
Approximately 18,400 federal student loan complaints were received in the year ending June 30, 2025, an increase of 36% from the previous year, according to a report released by the CFPB. “This is the highest number of federal student loan complaints received in one year,” according to the documents released.
However, the released government report does not include a breakdown of the specific complaints filed by federal student loan borrowers, which Bernard said was compiled and included in the draft report. She based her analysis on a sample of 5,017 complaints received from federal student loan borrowers.
Barnard said repayment issues were the most common complaint among federal debtors, accounting for 24% of the filings reviewed. She found that 15% of the issues cited were related to credit reporting issues and 7% were concentrated in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.
More than 800,000 borrowers are awaiting decisions on their applications to access affordable repayment plans, according to a recent court filing. Millions of people are being forced to switch from the Biden administration’s Savings for Worthy Education (SAVE) plan after it was blocked by a Republican-led legal challenge.
Court filings show that applications from an additional 83,370 borrowers for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Buyback Program have also not been resolved. The program allows borrowers seeking PSLF to make retroactive payments for months missed due to forbearance or deferral.
“Debtors are literally having trouble paying their bills,” Bernard said of the complaints filed with the CFPB.
“These issues have a huge impact,” she says.
The report released by the CFPB also does not include a breakdown of the student loan repayment companies named in the federal debtors’ complaints, which was detailed in the draft.
Higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz said the published report “details service issues.”
Also omitted are recommendations for student loan cancellation and information that experts say could help defaulting borrowers repay their loans.
