The 26 pages of findings — released earlier this month in consultation with the department’s Division of Financial Regulation and its student loan ombudsman — say that 95 complaints were made to the ombudsman’s office from June 2024 to May 2025. That marks a more than 30% jump from the previous reported year’s caseload. The department attributes the rise to shifting federal guidance and a lack of clarity from loan payment administrators.
The office had more open complaints when the report was published than at any other comparable period in the office’s three-year history, despite also investigating and closing more complaints per month than in previous years.
“I am speaking to so many people,” Lane Thompson, Oregon’s student loan ombuds, told the Capital Chronicle. “Just the kind of overall feeling among borrowers is that their student loans are becoming more expensive. They are more difficult to deal with. We’re talking about a time when most people list the economy as a number one concern, these are big bills for people.”
The amount of student debt Oregonians owe is higher than the nationwide average, with the Beaver State’s more than 533,000 federal student loan borrowers having about $44,000 in debt, according to a January 2025 fact sheet from the D.C-based Student Borrower Protection Center.
The state’s report organized the most common complaints from individuals seeking to pay off that debt by keyword, with phrases such as “forgiveness/cancellation” and “servicer provided wrong information” ranking at the top.
“The overlap and shared roots of many complaints come back to lack of information,” the report reads.
Various companies handling debt payments to the education department have been difficult to reach, the report says. In particular, it notes that low-income individuals, public servants and people with disabilities have been most harmed by a lack of clear guidance when it comes to accessing federal loan benefits.
Changing federal policies
The main change in “theme and tenor” of complaints this year, according to the report, revolved around the handling of litigation against the Saving on a Valuable Education program, on which an estimated 104,700 Oregonians rely, according to the D.C.-based nonprofit Student Borrower Protection Center.
The program, created by the Biden administration, gave these individuals monthly repayment terms and allowed them to pay nothing if their yearly income was less than $32,800, capping collectable interest while setting a pathway to forgiveness after 10 to 25 years.
SAVE payments have been on hold since Republican states received an injunction in July 2024, and a ruling from a federal judge in February reaffirmed that block. But starting in August, interest will begin to accrue on loans.
Congress, meanwhile, has moved to end the SAVE pathway by 2028 in Republicans’ recently-passed megabill earlier this month. The new payment plans could cost borrowers making less than $35,000 dollars annually an additional $300 monthly in payments, according to analysis from the Student Borrower Protection Center.
Thompson’s office is still working on its analysis of the bill, she said, but the removal of SAVE would leave few payment plans for enrollees. By 2026, enrollees have two main payment plans, though there are some exemptions depending on how long someone has been a part of SAVE. One option has cancellation set at 30 years with income-based monthly payments of $10 a month, a number that was previously $0. Another has higher payments and a 10-25 year cancellation period.
SAVE, however, was not the only program noted in the report. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program is also facing changes under a March executive order by the Trump administration.
The program provides loan cancellation after 10 years of payment for many government employees and nonprofit workers, but proposed language from the Department of Education has alarmed some advocacy groups who now fear eligibility could become a tool of political retribution, the Associated Press reported earlier this month.
Additionally, staffing reductions at the U.S. Department of Education have impacted the office’s ability to carry out its duties, according to the report. The education department had said it would resume forced collections on defaulted student loans in May following a pause at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Thompson said the ombudsman office has seen little communication signaling the implementation of the policy, such as a 30-day debt collections notice.
“No one’s really seen it, we don’t have a copy of it,” she said. “Collections do not appear to have started.”
The ombudsman office holds the legal authority to enforce its actions, as empowered by the state Legislature through the passage of Senate Bill 485 in 2021. The office is currently investigating one loan administrator for failing to respond to its inquiries, according to the report.