Richard Adams Cordray (born May 3, 1959) is an American lawyer and politician who served from 2021 to 2024 as COO of Federal Student Aid in the United States Department of Education.

In April 2024, the Biden administration announced Cordray's departure after a chaotic rollout of changes to the FAFSA student aid application form.

Following Republican victories in Ohio statewide elections in 1994, Cordray left his appointed position and entered the private practice of law.

[9] Cordray earned Phi Beta Kappa honors and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in legal and political theory in 1981.

As a Marshall Scholar, he earned a Master of Arts with first class honors in philosophy, politics and economics from Brasenose College, Oxford.

[9][12] After starting work as a law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court, Cordray returned to his high school to deliver the commencement speech for the graduating class of 1988.

[9] In 1990 Cordray ran for an Ohio State House of Representatives seat, in the 33rd district (southern and western Franklin County), against six-term incumbent Republican Don Gilmore.

[22] Cordray ran for Ohio's 15th congressional district in the 1992 U.S. House of Representatives elections, and won the Democratic nomination over Bill Buckel by an 18,731–5,329 (78–22%) margin,[23] following the withdrawal of another candidate, Dave Sommer.

[26] When Deborah Pryce, then a Franklin County municipal judge, announced that she would vote to support abortion rights, Linda Reidelbach entered the race as an independent.

[32] Other cases included Household Credit Services v. Pfennig (541 U.S. 232 (2004)), Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington (538 U.S. 216 (2003)), Demore v. Kim (538 U.S. 510 (2003)), and Groh v. Ramirez (540 U.S. 551 (2004)).

[38] The United States Supreme Court did not agree to hear arguments on the topic until a few weeks after Cordray resigned from his solicitor general position.

At the same time, Fisher, Cordray's boss, sought a referendum to mandate that appeals in death penalty cases be made directly to the Supreme Court.

[44] In late 1996 Cordray, who was in private practice at the time, was a leading contender and finalist for a United States attorney position during the second term of the Clinton administration, along with Kent Markus and Sharon Zealey.

[47] During the 1998 election for Ohio attorney general, Cordray ran unopposed in the Democratic primary[48] but was defeated, 62%–38%, by one-term Republican incumbent Betty Montgomery.

[49][50] Cordray entered the U.S. Senate elections in a race that began as a three-way contest for the Democratic nomination to oppose first-term Republican incumbent Mike DeWine.

Marvin McMickle, and Ted Celeste) were encouraged to campaign together in order to promote name recognition, conserve resources and lessen infighting.

[77][78][79] Several leading Republican party contenders such as Montgomery, Jim Petro, DeWine, Maureen O'Connor, and Rob Portman declined to enter the race.

[82] Crites's campaign strategies included attempts to link Cordray with Dann—an association The Columbus Dispatch called into question[83]—and promoting himself as having more years of prosecutorial experience.

[88] In September 2009 Cordray, on behalf of Ohio's largest public employee pension funds (State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio and the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System), the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and pension funds from Sweden and the Netherlands, filed suit alleging that Bank of America, its directors and four executives (Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis, Bank of America Chief Financial Officer Joe Price, accounting chief Neil Cotty and former Merrill chairman and CEO John Thain) acted to conceal Merrill's growing losses from shareholders voted to approve the deal the prior December.

[90] The amended complaint included details about conversations and communications between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch executives that were revealed in media reports, congressional testimony and investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

[92] Cordray was repeatedly mentioned as a potential 2014 candidate for governor of Ohio,[93][94] but after being confirmed to a five-year term to head the CFPB, he declined to run.

[95] On December 15, 2010, Special Advisor to President Barack Obama Elizabeth Warren announced that she had selected Cordray to lead the enforcement arm of the newly-created United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), saying, "Richard Cordray has the vision and experience to help us build a team that ensures every lender in the marketplace is playing by the rules."

[96][97][98] Cordray described the opportunity to The Wall Street Journal as a chance to resume "... in many ways doing on a 50-state basis the things I cared most about as a state attorney general, with a more robust and a more comprehensive authority.

"[99] On July 17, 2011, Cordray was selected as the head of the entire CFPB,[100] but his nomination was immediately in jeopardy because 44 Senate Republicans had previously vowed to derail any nominee in order to push for a decentralized structure to the organization.

[102][103] On July 21, 2011, Senator Richard Shelby wrote an op-ed article for The Wall Street Journal affirming continued opposition (that went back to a May 5 letter to the President) to a centralized structure, noting that both the Securities Exchange Commission and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had executive boards and that the CFPB should be no different.

[121] The CFPB also implemented reforms to the credit card market that lowered consumer costs and promoted transparency by reducing hidden fees and charges.

[122] It imposed large fines on banks for credit card add-on fees and brought the first major enforcement action against Wells Fargo.

[140] At the outset of the Biden administration, only 7,000 public servants had received loan forgiveness through PSLF, despite many more having made their payments for the statutory term of ten years, while few if any Borrower Defense claims had been approved for students who had been misled by failing schools.

[143] Despite the failure of Biden's initiative, FSA continued to grant loan forgiveness under other programs, including PSLF, Borrower Defense, Temporary and Permanent Disability, and the new SAVE plan for income-driven repayment.

[147] Further problems on the back end and a last-minute change to the aid calculation meant that colleges received no FAFSA information until March, even if a student submitted the form in January.