The U.S. Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau headquarters in Washington, Feb. 2, 2025.
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Federal pupil mortgage debtors submitted a file variety of complaints to the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau from mid-2024 to mid-2025, a current report from the bureau exhibits.
However the authorities’s 21-page report, printed in early January, omits particulars on the character of debtors’ complaints — together with the problems they face, the mortgage servicers concerned and the potential cures out there — that appeared in a 36-page draft of the report obtained by CNBC.
“I used to be dissatisfied that the report was not printed in its entirety,” mentioned Julia Barnard, a former pupil mortgage ombudsman who resigned from the CFPB in October. Barnard, who authored the draft of the report, advised CNBC that CFPB management’s choice to omit her findings is the rationale she parted with the bureau.
“As a result of stories like this one are being censored, personal events and the Division of Schooling have fewer alternatives to right their failures,” Barnard mentioned. Making much less info out there to the general public limits the company’s accountability, she mentioned.
The CFPB didn’t reply to requests for remark from CNBC. In feedback to Politico in January, an company spokesperson described Barnard as a “disgruntled” former worker and mentioned the draft “didn’t deal with any of the statutory necessities for the report.”
Barnard disputed that account.
“I did precisely what the statute requires, which is to current a compilation and examination of criticism developments, coverage suggestions and a mirrored image on the actions and effectiveness of the workplace within the prior 12 months,” she mentioned.
Greater than 42 million People maintain pupil loans, and the excellent debt exceeds $1.6 trillion, in accordance with the Congressional Analysis Service. Pupil mortgage debtors are going through a barrage of adjustments to the federal lending system and issue accessing aid applications underneath the Trump administration.
Congress established the CFPB in 2010 and tasked the watchdog company with defending shoppers from abuses within the monetary market. The Trump administration has rolled again CFPB enforcement exercise and sought to cut back the company’s workers and funding, though lots of these actions have been challenged in court docket.
“The choice to quash the items of this report most important of the Trump Schooling Division and the coed mortgage business tells a grim story, as hundreds of thousands of debtors default on their loans and the Trump administration shreds the coed mortgage security internet,” mentioned Mike Pierce, a former senior advisor to the coed mortgage ombudsman on the CFPB and the chief director of Shield Debtors, an advocacy group. Pierce has seen each the printed report and the draft.
‘Essential to get specifics on complaints’
Nadine Chabrier, a senior coverage and litigation counsel on the nonprofit Heart for Accountable Lending, a nonprofit that advocates for honest lending practices, mentioned it was noticeable how a lot much less strong the bureau’s newest printed report was than prior editions. For instance, a report issued throughout President Donald Trump’s first time period, in October 2020, was a 66-page file and included intensive particulars on the character of debtors’ complaints.
“It is necessary to get specifics on complaints to establish patterns, perceive the results and develop options,” Chabrier mentioned.
The curtailed report on the state of pupil loans comes as extra debtors are falling behind. Round 9 million individuals are presently in default on their training debt, in accordance with an estimate by Shield Debtors.
Beneath the Trump administration, a whole lot of 1000’s of pupil mortgage debtors have been ready — in some instances, for greater than a 12 months — in a backlog of purposes to entry an inexpensive reimbursement plan or the mortgage forgiveness mandated of their borrowing phrases.
Pupil mortgage complaints are up 36%, CFPB says
The CFPB’s printed report signifies it acquired round 18,400 federal pupil mortgage complaints for the 12 months ending June 30, 2025, a 36% uptick from the earlier 12 months. “That is the best variety of federal pupil mortgage complaints acquired in a one-year interval,” in accordance with the printed doc.
Nevertheless, the printed authorities report doesn’t embrace a breakdown of the particular complaints lodged by federal pupil mortgage debtors, which Barnard mentioned she had compiled and which seems within the draft report. She primarily based her evaluation on a pattern of 5,017 complaints from federal pupil mortgage debtors.
Compensation points had been the highest criticism amongst federal debtors, accounting for twenty-four% of the reviewed submissions, Barnard discovered. She discovered that 15% of the issues cited concerned credit score reporting points, and seven% centered on the Public Service Mortgage Forgiveness program.
In response to a current court docket submitting, greater than 800,000 debtors are awaiting a call on their purposes to entry an inexpensive reimbursement plan. Tens of millions of individuals have been underneath stress to modify out of the Biden administration’s Saving on A Beneficial Schooling, or SAVE, plan after this system was blocked by Republican-led authorized challenges.
The court docket submitting exhibits that purposes from an extra 83,370 debtors for the Public Service Mortgage Forgiveness Buyback program, which lets debtors pursuing PSLF retroactively pay for months missed because of forbearance or deferment, additionally haven’t been resolved.
“Debtors are actually having bother making funds,” Barnard mentioned, talking concerning the complaints coming into the CFPB.
“These issues are enormously consequential,” she mentioned.
The CFPB’s printed report additionally doesn’t embrace a breakdown of the coed mortgage servicing firms cited in federal debtors’ complaints, a element the draft contained.
The printed report “glosses over servicing points,” mentioned increased training knowledgeable Mark Kantrowitz.
It additionally leaves out suggestions for pupil mortgage cancellation and data that consultants say might have helped debtors in default get present.