Almost 44 million Americans have had their student loans in deferment since March 2020. Those payments will start up again the end of this summer – around September 1, 2023. Many of these borrowers have not had to budget for the student loan payments, possibly creating some real challenges. There is fear that student loan delinquencies will jump to 10% or more. What can you do if you are one of these borrowers that need to start paying? There are some options.

A startling directive came out this week from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. Any consumer who has defaulted on a federally-backed, privately serviced student loan will have their interest rates on their student loans dropped to 0%, and no monthly payments will need to be made to lenders for the time being.

The pandemic has really changed the way loans are repaid and how it impacts a person’s credit sanding. Several politicians have asked lenders to skip payments on a variety of loans including mortgages, auto and credit cards. We now have some political leaders asking lenders to not only skip loan payments, but also are asking the government to forgive the education loans for many students. So, what they are saying is a loan doesn’t have to be repaid according to the terms of the agreement, right? Where are we going with this?