Got a Student Loan Complaint? Who Ya Gonna Call? Om-buds-man

Apologies to those creative geniuses who brought us that hit movie Ghostbusters.  The Ombudsman  website states their purpose so succinctly:  "The Federal Student Aid Ombudsman of the Department of Education helps resolve disputes and solve other problems with federal student loans."

So, what disputes are they resolving?  Here is trend data for FY 2001-2006 on research cases that the Student Aid ombudsman has taken on (here is the presentation that this information was gleaned from:  Download Ombudsman_Presentation.ppt)

 

                    Number of Research Cases

	Top 5	Other	Consolidation	TOTAL
2001	1785	1544	144	3473
2002	1915	1390	224	3529
2003	2324	1297	372	3993
2004	2360	1337	357	4054
2005	2825	1439	606	4870
2006	3184	1479	1018	5681

 

The Top 5 Research Case categories in FY 2006 are:

• Consolidation
• Loan Cancellation/Discharge
• Account Balance
• Repayment Plans/Amounts
• Defaults

For more recent trend data, I turned to the August 2008 Ombudsman Newsletter:

Case Intake: General assistance and research cases received by telephone declined while cases received through the Ombudsman website and by e-mail increased. The Ombudsman received 888 fewer cases by telephone while experiencing an increase of 683 cases received through the website and by e-mail.

General Assistance: For FY 2008 general assistance cases increased by 8.26% as compared to the same time period in FY 2007.

Research Cases: During FY 2008 to date, research cases declined by 4.3% relative to FY 2007.

Top Issues: For FY 2008 the top 5 research case issues are:
- Loan Cancellation/Discharge
- Account Balance
- Repayment Plans/Amounts
- Default
- FSA Assistance

[SLA Note:  Consolidation no longer appears in the top 5 as it did in 2006, as it was replaced by FSA Assistance.]

Loan Cancellation/Discharge: Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) Discharge issues continue to be the single most common subcategory of research case.  Despite the slight reduction in overall research cases noted above, loan cancellation/discharge research cases increased by nearly 20%. TPD cases account for more than one-half of loan cancellation and discharge cases and nearly 13% of all research cases.

Consolidation: Consolidation research cases continue to decline in total number. Through the first three quarters of FY 2008, consolidation research cases decreased by 62.3% compared to the first three quarters of FY 2007.

Congressional Inquiries: Congressional offices are a growing source of referrals. Through the first 3 quarters of FY 2008, referrals of research cases from Congressional offices increased by 41.2% compared to the same period in FY 2007.

Issue Increases: Private loan, repayment and public service discharge questions are on the rise, but not of great concern at this point.