27,000 Borrowers Stuck In Student Loan Complaint Backlog

The Department of Education’s ombudsman office, which handles disputes from student loan borrowers, is facing a backlog exceeding 27,000 cases, according to a recent data sent to Senator Elizabeth Warren (PDF File). The surge comes after the office lost nearly two-thirds of its staff in sweeping layoffs authorized by the Trump administration earlier this year.

According to recent court documents (PDF File), the office had 63 employees at the start of the year but now has 25.

As a result, number of unresolved complaints has risen sharply from about 16,000 in March to its current level of over 27,000, and the office continues to receive hundreds of new cases each week.

In May, the most recent month with available figures, the office closed just over 1,100 complaints. At that rate, the backlog could continue to grow for months. Senator Warren has pressed Education Secretary Linda McMahon for details on how the department will address the bottleneck, along with other operational issues stemming from the layoffs.