Warren, Sanders Press Top Trump Student Loan Official on Plan to Protect Borrowers Given Past Censorship of Key Student Loan Report, Extensive Lobbying Record

Warren, Sanders Press Top Trump Student Loan Official on Plan to Protect Borrowers Given Past Censorship of Key Student Loan Report, Extensive Lobbying Record

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (BHUA), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), pressed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) new Student Loan Ombudsman, Geoffrey Gradler, on his plan to protect student loan borrowers, especially given his past censorship of a key student loan report at the CFPB and his background as a lobbyist for lenders. The senators also asked him to recuse himself from past clients' matters that might come before his office at the CFPB.

"We are concerned that you will follow the Trump administration's consistent playbook on private student loans: implementing policy after policy that benefits private lenders and their servicers at the expense of borrowers," wrote the senators.

As the Student Loan Ombudsman, Gradler is responsible for investigating student loan borrowers' complaints about misconduct by student loan lenders and servicers, compiling and analyzing data on these complaints, and making policy recommendations regarding private student loans.

The Trump administration has attempted to shut down the CFPB entirely, deprioritized supervision and enforcement actions related to student loan issues, and stopped major enforcement actions against companies accused of using illegal student loan debt collection practices. In their Big Beautiful Bill, President Trump and Congressional Republicans also limited graduate student and parent borrowers' access to federal student loans, forcing working families to turn to private loans, which have fewer consumer protections than federal loans.

"You have given no assurances that you will break this pattern and use your new role to protect borrowers from predatory private lenders," said the lawmakers.

In October 2025, CFPB leadership - which included Gradler at the time - blocked the release of the legally-mandated annual Student Loan Ombudsman report, which evaluates the office's effectiveness at protecting borrowers and provides policy recommendations on the student loan system. Months later, the CFPB released a shorter version of the report, co-authored by Gradler, cutting data on which private lenders and servicers were most often the subject of complaints.

"Your role in this disturbing episode of censorship suggests that you may be reluctant to fulfill your statutory duties…raising concern about your ability to hold these companies accountable for anti-consumer behavior or even provide useful information to policymakers and advocates," wrote the senators.

Gradler also has limited experience in consumer protection and has a long career working as a lobbyist for lenders, which the senators said "raise[s] further doubt about [his] priorities."

Before joining the CFPB in August 2025, Gradler lobbied on behalf of lenders and financial services firms for over twenty years. In 2019, Gradler founded a boutique lobbying firm whose top client every year through 2024 was the National Installment Lenders Association. Prior to joining the CFPB, Gradler does not appear to have worked in a role where he was responsible for protecting consumers or holding predatory companies accountable.

"We are concerned that you may be more inclined to protect the profits of private student loan lenders and loan servicers than fight on behalf of borrowers who are abused by these companies," wrote the senators.

"At a time when the Trump administration is already stripping borrowers, students, and families of their access to federal support and…decimating the Department of Education, student loan borrowers deserve a Student Loan Ombudsman who they can count on to protect them from bad actors," the senators concluded.

The senators asked Gradler to address questions about his role in censoring the prior Ombudsman's report and asked him to commit to recusing himself from his former clients' matters by May 11, 2026.

Senator Warren has led the fight to make our higher education system more affordable, cancel student loan debt, and hold student loan servicers accountable for incompetence and malfeasance. The senator launched the Save Our Schools campaign in a coordinated effort to fight back against President Trump's attempts to abolish the Department of Education.

• On April 2, 2026, Senators Warren, Sanders, Wyden, Murray, and Baldwin -- all top Democrats on influential education committees -- pressed Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to rescind their plans to move the administration of federal student loans to the Treasury Department, the latest move in the Trump administration's attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.
• On February 23, 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, along with Representative Ayanna Pressley, released a response from the Department of Education to their November letter regarding a potential sale of the federal student debt portfolio. In the response, ED confirms for the first time publicly that they are weighing a sale of the federal student loan portfolio.
• On February 19, 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) pushed Education Secretary Linda McMahon on concerns that the U.S. Department of Education is apparently obstructing Congressional efforts to hold federal student loan servicers accountable for underperformance.
• On February 2, 2026, Senator Warren released a new report revealing the findings of their investigation into how private student loan lenders will reap the benefits from cuts to federal student loan access enacted in Republicans' Big, Beautiful Bill (OBBBA). The report is the first Congressional analysis of the impacts of the OBBBA's student loan restrictions on the private lending market.
• On January 22, 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) led their Senate colleagues in demanding answers from Trump Education Secretary Linda McMahon about the Trump Administration's proposal to eliminate affordable student loan repayment options for millions of Americans.
• On December 8, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in writing to the federal student loan servicers to ensure they are providing borrowers with the customer service they deserve in the wake of the Trump administration's student loan policy whiplash. The senators sent letters to MOHELA, Nelnet, EdFinancial, Maximus, and CRI.
• On December 1, 2025, Senator Warren published an op-ed in USA Today calling for Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to resign following the recent news that President Trump and Secretary McMahon plan to further dismantle the Department of Education (ED).
• On November 17, 2025, Senator Warren led over 40 of her colleagues in a letter urging Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to immediately end any plans to sell or transfer the federal student loan portfolio to the private market.
• On November 10, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in a letter urging the Trump administration to use the IRS's existing legal authorities to stop the looming "tax bomb" facing borrowers who obtain income-driven repayment (IDR) discharges of their student loan debt.
• On October 15, 2025, Senator Warren and Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) led 70 members of Congress in a letter calling on the Trump administration to address the ongoing and unprecedented wave of student loan delinquencies and defaults, which threatens the financial stability of millions of people and could have disastrous effects on the American economy.
• On September 19, 2025, following a push by Senator Warren and nine other senators, the Acting Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education agreed to open an investigation into DOGE's infiltration of internal systems, including the scope of its access to sensitive student loan borrower information and its impact on borrowers' rights and privacy.
• On August 26, 2025, Senator Warren led colleagues in sending a follow-up letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon condemning the Department of Education for deliberately hiding the "Submit a Complaint" button on the Office of Federal Student Aid's website, firing employees responsible for providing customer service to borrowers and families and misleading Congress about the scope of these firings.
• On August 4, 2025, Senator Warren led eight Senators in pressing major private student loan lenders on their plans to serve the incoming surge of borrowers who will be pushed to the industry because of Republicans' recently passed "Big, Beautiful Bill."
• On July 17, 2025, Senator Warren released a new 23-page report, "Education At Risk: Frontline Impacts of Trump's War on Students," highlighting warnings from 11 major national education and civil rights organizations on the impact of the Trump Administration's dismantling of the Department of Education (ED), slashing support to millions of American students, primary and secondary school teachers, administrators, parents, and student loan borrowers.
• On July 15, 2025, Senators Warren and Sanders, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, urging her to reverse the interest hike on student loan borrowers in the SAVE forbearance.

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