No more pause. How to prepare for student loan payments
Due to a pandemic-related halt that placed both payments and interest on hold for more than three years, millions of people haven't had to make any federal student loan payments in a while.
Since then, many people have carried on with their lives in a post-pandemic world,
living within budgets that did not require them to factor in student debt payments and being aware of the impending T-Rex in the rearview mirror but perhaps hesitant to admit it.
All of that is going to alter. In October, student loan repayment will commence, and on Friday, interest will start to accumulate.
This restart was included in a debt ceiling bill that Congress approved in June to prevent default, after many postponements.
By the end of March, there were more than $1.77 trillion in outstanding student loan balances, 92% of which were federal loans.
Here are some preparation tips for the approximately 44 million Americans who still owe money on federal student loans.
According to one analyst, since before the March 2020 moratorium, 44% of customers have had their loan servicers change. Beginning in July, emails containing links to the websites of loan servicers began to circulate.