Education Department has a backlog of 27,000 complaints about student loans

Source: NBC News

Aug. 7, 2025, 12:00 PM EDT


A key office in the Department of Education responsible for fielding grievances about student loans has a backlog of more than 27,000 complaints after losing nearly two-thirds of its staff.

The department revealed the pileup in a July 21 letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., according to a copy provided to NBC News. The Federal Student Aid ombudsman office receives hundreds of complaints a week, related to problems with student loan processing, repayments and financial aid scams.

The office closed just over 1,100 complaints in May, the most recent month with available data, and Warren wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Wednesday that this pace made her concerned that the backlog will continue to grow.

“The Trump administration is abandoning Americans who have been scammed by their student loan servicers or have problems with their loans,” Warren said in a statement to NBC News. “I’m pushing Secretary McMahon because families across this country deserve answers about her efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.” The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/education-department-backlog-student-loan-complaints-rcna223508

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Link to LETTER (PDF viewer) - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26041774-os-25-005934-warren-out26/

Link to LETTER (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26041774/os-25-005934-warren-out26.pdf

(as a note - the above was a response to a "sternly worded letter" MOST of such "letters" actually being questions that the Congressional senders are asking to have answered, and yes they do, for the most part, get a response back like the above)