CFPB Finds Student Loan Complaints Hit Record High

CFPB data show that student loan complaints are now at their highest level since the agency began tracking them, with a sharp jump in the most recent award year.

What the CFPB found

• From July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, the CFPB logged about 22,900 complaints related to private and federal student loans, the highest volume it has ever received in a single year.

• Of these, roughly 18,400 complaints involved federal student loans, representing about a 36% increase from the prior year and the highest annual federal-loan complaint count on record.

• About 4,500 complaints involved private student loans, up roughly 33% year over year (the fifth‑highest annual total for private loans but part of the overall record).

Key patterns behind the record

• The CFPB notes a significant rise in untimely company responses: about 20% of student-loan complaints did not receive a timely reply, roughly double the rate from the previous year.

• Complaints cluster around issues like dealing with servicers, difficulty repaying, problems getting loans, and credit reporting problems, as well as concerns about income share agreements and school‑based lending.​

• The report also flags growing concern over frauds and scams that target student loan borrowers, particularly in the private loan space, and urges stronger enforcement and better consumer education.​

Why this matters for borrowers

• The spike in complaints signals that many borrowers are struggling with repayment changes, servicer performance, and access to promised relief or forgiveness programs.

• High complaint volumes help regulators spot systemic problems (for example, patterns in how particular servicers handle accounts) and can drive supervisory actions or enforcement against lenders or collectors that violate the law.

Quick comparison of the new numbers

The most common student loan complaints fall into a small set of recurring categories that focus on servicer behavior, repayment problems, and credit reporting.

Main CFPB complaint categories

According to the CFPB’s student loan ombudsman reports, borrowers choose from six main issue types when they file complaints:​

• Dealing with your lender or servicer (account errors, poor customer service, misapplied payments, bad information about options).

• Struggling to repay your loan (affordability, denial or mismanagement of income‑driven plans, problems getting deferment or forbearance).

• Getting a loan (origination issues, confusing or misleading terms, co‑signer problems).

• Problem with your credit report or score (wrong delinquency/default reporting, failure to update after rehab or consolidation).

• Issue with income share agreement (ISA terms, disclosures, how payments are calculated and collected).

• Issue where my lender is my school (school-based or institutional loans, cancellation or refund disputes).​

What shows up most often

• For both federal and private loans, “dealing with your servicer” is consistently the largest bucket, covering issues like processing errors, call‑center runaround, and not following through on promised fixes.

• “Struggling to repay” is another major category, reflecting complaints that servicers gave incorrect information about repayment plans or forgiveness, delayed applications, or pushed borrowers into costly forbearances instead of affordable plans.

• Credit reporting problems, fraud/scam complaints, and collection‑related issues (especially for defaulted loans) also appear frequently, though in smaller numbers than servicing and repayment complaints.