Investigations

Investigations

Jan 7, 2026

2025 Student Loan Default Crisis: State by State

Protect Borrowers’ analysis shows that by the end of 2025, student loan borrowers had defaulted on debts totaling more than $92 billion—bringing the total number of borrowers whose debts meet the legal definition of a student loan default to nearly 9 million people nationwide.

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Investigations Letters & Memos

Apr 1, 2025

Predatory Tech Company Prehired Defies Government Order to Cease Operations and Continues Defrauding Students as “FastTrack”

SBPC released the results of a months-long investigation into the tech company Prehired, exposing how the firm had resumed its scheme to push worthless credentials on students, paid for via its own predatory private student lending operation.

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Investigations

Sep 10, 2024

Total Private Student Loan Balance by State

Explore our map indicating the total private student loan balance by state.

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Investigations

Nov 4, 2022

Collections Catastrophe: Appendices

Spurred by litigation, in late 2021 ED released roughly 2,000 pages of reports, communications, and other records concerning its management of the AWG program during COVID.

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Investigations

Nov 4, 2022

Navient FFELP delinquency as of September 2022

Check out our data visualization of delinquencies on securitized FFELP debt surge.

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Investigations Reports

Jul 28, 2022

Trapped at Work: How Big Business Uses Student Debt to Restrict Worker Mobility

The investigation reveals that “Training Repayment Agreement Provisions” (TRAPs) have become more prominent in use by major employers as a tool to trap people in poor working environments and low-paying jobs.

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Investigations

Sep 20, 2021

Documents from the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency on Employer Certification Form Denials and Reasons for Denial

In an effort to continue investigating ongoing breakdowns denying borrowers access to PSLF, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and the SBPC uncovered thousands of pages of documents from the company the Department of Education contracts with to manage PSLF: PHEAA.

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Investigations Reports

Apr 8, 2021

SBPC Investigation Reveals New Evidence of How the Student Loan Industry and the Department of Education Failed Borrowers During the Pandemic

The findings of this investigation include tens of thousands of never-before-seen instances in which federal student loan servicers inaccurately told credit reporting agencies that borrowers whose payments had been paused at the outset of COVID had stopped paying on their student loans.

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Investigations Reports

Mar 25, 2021

Advocates Warn That ISA Provider Stride Funding’s Lending Model is Potentially Harming Students of Color and Violating Fair Lending Law

This report is the result of an investigation that reveals potentially harmful business practices and possible fair lending risks by Stride Funding, an education finance firm that originates and markets Income Share Agreements (ISAs).

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Investigations Letters & Memos

Mar 11, 2021

SBPC Investigation Finds Coding Bootcamps Offering ISAs May Be Unlawfully Depriving Students of the Ability to Protect Themselves from Fraud

In a memo, the SPBC highlights how ISA companies are unlawfully depriving students of the ability to protect themselves from fraud by leaving out of their ISA contracts language required under the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) “Holder Rule.”

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