The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau headquarters in Washington, Feb. 2, 2025.
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Federal student loan borrowers submitted a record number of complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from mid-2024 to mid-2025, a recent report from the bureau shows.
But the government’s 21-page report, published in early January, omits details on the nature of borrowers’ complaints — including the issues they face, the loan servicers involved and the possible remedies available — that appeared in a 36-page draft of the report obtained by CNBC.
“I was disappointed that the report was not published in its entirety,” said Julia Barnard, a former student loan ombudsman who resigned from the CFPB in October. Barnard, who authored the draft of the report, told CNBC that CFPB leadership’s decision to omit her findings is the reason she parted with the bureau.
“Because reports like this one are being censored, private parties and the Department of Education have fewer opportunities to correct their failures,” Barnard said. Making less information available to the public limits the agency’s accountability, she said.
The CFPB did not respond to requests for comment from CNBC. In comments to Politico in January, an agency spokesperson described Barnard as a “disgruntled” former employee and said the draft “did not address any of the statutory requirements for the report.”
Barnard disputed that account.
“I did exactly what the statute calls for, which is to present a compilation and examination of complaint trends, policy recommendations and a reflection on the activities and effectiveness of the office in the prior year,” she said.
More than 42 million Americans hold student loans, and the outstanding debt exceeds $1.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Research Service. Student loan borrowers are facing a barrage of changes to the federal lending system and difficulty accessing relief programs under the Trump administration.
Congress established the CFPB in 2010 and tasked the watchdog agency with protecting consumers from abuses in the financial marketplace. The Trump administration has rolled back CFPB enforcement activity and sought to reduce the agency’s staff and funding, although many of those actions have been challenged in court.
“The decision to quash the pieces of this report most critical of the Trump Education Department and the student loan industry tells a grim story, as millions of borrowers default on their loans and the Trump administration shreds the student loan safety net,” said Mike Pierce, a former senior advisor to the student loan ombudsman at the CFPB and the executive director of Protect Borrowers, an advocacy organization. Pierce has seen both the published report and the draft.
‘Important to get specifics on complaints’
Nadine Chabrier, a senior policy and litigation counsel at the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit that advocates for fair lending practices, said it was noticeable how much less robust the bureau’s latest published report was than prior editions. For example, a report issued during President Donald Trump’s first term, in October 2020, was a 66-page file and included extensive details on the nature of borrowers’ complaints.
“It’s important to get specifics on complaints to identify patterns, understand the consequences and develop solutions,” Chabrier said.
The curtailed report on the state of student loans comes as more borrowers are falling behind. Around 9 million people are currently in default on their education debt, according to an estimate by Protect Borrowers.
Under the Trump administration, hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers have been waiting — in some cases, for more than a year — in a backlog of applications to access an affordable repayment plan or the loan forgiveness mandated in their borrowing terms.
Student loan complaints are up 36%, CFPB says
The CFPB’s published report indicates it received around 18,400 federal student loan complaints for the year ending June 30, 2025, a 36% uptick from the previous year. “This is the highest number of federal student loan complaints received in a one-year period,” according to the published document.
However, the published government report does not include a breakdown of the specific complaints lodged by federal student loan borrowers, which Barnard said she had compiled and which appears in the draft report. She based her analysis on a sample of 5,017 complaints from federal student loan borrowers.
Repayment issues were the top complaint among federal borrowers, accounting for 24% of the reviewed submissions, Barnard found. She found that 15% of the problems cited involved credit reporting issues, and 7% centered on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
According to a recent court filing, more than 800,000 borrowers are awaiting a decision on their applications to access an affordable repayment plan. Millions of people have been under pressure to switch out of the Biden administration’s Saving on A Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan after the program was blocked by Republican-led legal challenges.
The court filing shows that applications from an additional 83,370 borrowers for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Buyback program, which lets borrowers pursuing PSLF retroactively pay for months missed due to forbearance or deferment, also have not been resolved.
“Debtors are literally having trouble making payments,” Barnard said, speaking about the complaints coming into the CFPB.
“These problems are enormously consequential,” she said.
The CFPB’s published report also does not include a breakdown of the student loan servicing companies cited in federal borrowers’ complaints, a detail the draft contained.
The published report “glosses over servicing issues,” said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
It also leaves out recommendations for student loan cancellation and information that experts say could have helped borrowers in default get current.
