Student Defense Calls for Investigation of ED’s Failure to Release FY2025 Annual Report for Federal Student Aid
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 26, 2026
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Student Defense Calls for Investigation of ED’s Failure to Release FY2025 Annual Report for Federal Student Aid
Washington, D.C. — Student Defense sent a letter Thursday to Acting Inspector General Mark Priebe, requesting an investigation into the U.S. Department of Education’s failure to release the 2025 Annual Report for Federal Student Aid.
The report, which is statutorily required to be released each year, has not been released since November 2024 for FY2024. As the letter states, “the withholding of the FY25 report is leaving a significant gap in accountability at a critical moment for the student loan system.”
According to the FY2024 report, the annual summary “enables the President of the United States, the U.S. Congress, and the public to assess the organization’s performance relative to its mission and to determine whether FSA has shown itself to be accountable for the resources entrusted to it.”
As the letter notes, a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that millions of borrowers are not repaying their student loans. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers have loans stuck in processing backlogs.
“It’s no coincidence that this report is being withheld as the Trump Administration actively works to dismantle the Department of Education,” said Aaron Ament, President of Student Defense. “There’s no way to slash the Department’s staff by nearly 50 percent without consequences. Have enforcement actions truly grinded to a halt? Are we on the brink of a student loan default cliff? What are the backlogs of Public Service Loan Forgiveness applications and Borrower Defense claims? What are they so afraid to share with Congress and the public?”
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