Federal Student Aid (FSA) has posted a series of updates to its data center, the centralized online source for data and other information about FSA programs and operations. This update refreshes more than 70 quarterly application, disbursement, and loan portfolio reports to include data through Dec. 31, 2025. It also provides the most recent data available on forgiveness and discharge programs such as borrower defense to repayment and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, as well as information about Title IV institutions subject to heightened cash monitoring.
FSA proactively posts these reports to help ensure consistency, to increase accountability and transparency, and to establish self-service opportunities for interested stakeholders. While not exhaustive, the information below provides a snapshot of key findings in our most recent set of reports.
Outstanding Loan Portfolio Overview
Today, the outstanding federal student loan portfolio includes 42.8 million recipients with federal student loans totaling $1.7 trillion, which represents a three-and-one-half-percent-dollar increase from December 2024. The Direct Loan portfolio is more than 90% of the outstanding loan portfolio, while the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) portfolio represents less than 10%, and Perkins Loans comprise less than one-fifth of one percent. The federally managed portfolio—which includes FFEL and Perkins Program loans owned by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and Direct Loans—is now more than $1.61 trillion, representing more than 95% of the total portfolio.
Focus on the Federally Managed Portfolio
ED is directly responsible for managing 40.9 million recipient accounts with outstanding loans totaling more than $1.61 trillion across the Direct Loan and ED-held FFEL portfolio.
This quarter (between October and December 2025) was the first time that many borrowers’ accounts could potentially become 360 days delinquent, following the payment pause. Although the payment pause ended in September 2023, the on-ramp program continued to regularly cure delinquent borrowers’ accounts through October 2024. As a result, approximately 7.7 million ED-held recipients with $180 billion in outstanding federal student loans are in default, representing 11% of the total $1.61 trillion portfolio as of December 2025. While this is an increase of approximately 2.5 million recipients since September 2025, the count of federally managed recipients in default as of December 2025 mirrors the count from December 2019, prior to the payment pause, when 7.7 million recipients with approximately $168 billion in federal student loans were in default.
Nearly 18.4 million recipients, or about 45% of the 40.9 recipients, have at least one loan in a current repayment or delinquency status. These loans total approximately $647 billion (or 40%) of the total $1.61 trillion portfolio.
As of December 2025, 8.8 million recipients (or about one-fifth of all recipients) have at least one loan in a forbearance status. This includes more than 6.5 million borrowers in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan forbearance. As a result, approximately $504 billion in outstanding ED-serviced loans remain in forbearance, which is a decrease from $545 billion and 9.8 million recipients in September 2025. Forbearance peaked during the payment pause at $1.14 trillion in June 2023 but was $133 billion prior to the pause in February 2020.
Almost 3.4 million recipients (8% of total recipients) have at least one loan in deferment, totaling $138 billion. Since most deferments are education-related, it is not unusual for many of these borrowers to also have at least one loan in an in-school status. About 15% of recipients have a loan in an in-school status, while 3% of recipients have a loan in grace. Collectively, the balances across in-school and in-grace statuses represent 8% of Direct Loan and ED-held FFEL outstanding balances.
Delinquencies in the Federally Managed Servicing Portfolio
Although the first wave of delinquent borrowers’ accounts have already transferred into default, many borrowers remain at risk of entering default in the coming months.
The December 2025 reports show that more than 76% of ED-serviced recipients with loans in active repayment are current (on time or less than 31 days delinquent) on their federal student loan payments. Active repayment considers only those whose loans are in a repayment status and excludes borrowers in other statuses that would not require a monthly payment. However, this means that 23.2% of recipients, or more than four million recipients, are more than 30 days delinquent on their accounts. This includes approximately 1.8 million recipients in late-stage delinquency who are at risk of defaulting in the next six months.
By total dollar balance, the active repayment 31+ delinquency rate is 18.6% by total dollar balance, compared to 12.7% in December 2019. December 2019 was at the tail end of a multi-year decline in delinquency rates, primarily due to increasing portfolio quality and potentially due–in a lesser way—to the improving economy following the debts of the great recession earlier in the decade.
Income-Driven Repayment Usage
Nearly 12.9 million Direct Loan and ED-serviced FFEL borrowers in repayment, deferment, or forbearance statuses are enrolled in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan. This includes approximately seven million borrowers who remained in nonpayment status due to litigation as of December 2025. In terms of borrowers, approximately 42% of the ED-serviced repayment plan population is in an IDR plan (based on unduplicated borrowers in repayment, deferment, and forbearance).
Over the last year, the total of ED-serviced (Direct Loan + ED-serviced FFEL) balances in IDR plans has increased from $732 to $770 billion. In terms of dollars (total balance), 60% of the ED-serviced (Direct Loan servicing + ED-serviced FFEL) repayment plan universe is in an IDR plan, an increase from 56% in December 2024. (The increase is due in part to borrowers moving to default in recent months.)
New Application Volume and Aid Disbursements
As of December 2025, more than 17.2 million Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) forms were submitted for the 2025–26 school year, and nearly 5.8 million forms were submitted for the 2026–27 school year. This represents a 6% increase in AY 2025–26 applications submitted compared to the same period in the previous cycle and a 78% increase in 2026–27 forms compared to the number of forms that were submitted by the end of December in the prior cycle.
Disbursement data for the 2024–25 award year which ended June 30, 2025, shows that students received $39 billion in Federal Pell Grants and $88.1 billion in Direct Loans, which represents a 24% increase in Pell Grant disbursements and a 4% increase in Direct Loan disbursements from the same period for award year 2023–24.
To accurately interpret the data, please note the following:
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While student loans are traditionally highly cyclical in nature, recent data is not comparable to prior periods due to the three-and-a-half-year payment pause coupled with the implementation of programs such as the on-ramp and Fresh Start.
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In the portfolio reports, recipient counts are based at the loan level. For that reason, recipients may be counted multiple times across varying loan statuses. For example, a recipient with one loan in deferment and one loan in forbearance would be counted once in each category. A recipient with two loans in the same status would be counted only once in that category.
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Active repayment includes all current and delinquent borrowers whose accounts are currently serviced by federal loan servicers. Borrowers with loans in a grace, in-school, deferment, forbearance, bankruptcy, or disability status are not expected to make payments and are not included in this calculation.
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In the loan and grant reports, the first worksheet of the workbook shows the number of recipients and disbursements for the specified quarter, while the second tab shows the cumulative, award-year-to-date activity. The second worksheet of the award year’s fourth quarter report will show data for the full award year. Since the information is reported by specific loan type or grant program, a unique grant or loan recipient count is not available by school. Please note that since loan and grant reports are generally run shortly after the quarter’s end, initial runs often underreport activity because of institutions’ reporting delays and activity that occurs for the award year after the report run date (for example, summer disbursements).
The FSA data center was launched in 2009 to increase government transparency by proactively posting useful information for businesses, institutions, the media, and individuals.