The pause in student loan payments began while Trump was still president. Hasn’t there been enough time for planning?
Yahoo News reports:
Student loan borrowers brace for ‘the wave’ as payments restartDuring the pandemic, Shanna Hayes and her partner achieved some key financial strides despite both of them getting laid off at different times in the past three years. They paid off both of their cars, reduced their credit card debt, and managed a move from New Hampshire to pricier Washington, D.C.It was all possible because Hayes didn’t have to pay her federal student loans since the Covid-19 loan payment pause was enacted in March 2020. Now with that pause expiring and payments resuming in October, Hayes — like many other borrowers — are wondering again how they will be able to keep up.The Biden administration has laid out several ways to cushion the blow for borrowers as repayments begin, but those efforts may fall short for some.”The payment pause was a life vest and repayment is the wave that pulls you back out,” Hayes, a first-generation college graduate and former high school teacher who was laid off earlier this year, told Yahoo Finance. “The human aspect is real people behind the numbers.”A brief, but needed, reprieveDuring the pandemic, the majority of the 40 million borrowers who could skip paying their federal student loans without incurring interest took advantage of the reprieve and socked away major money.”During the 42-month pause, borrowers saved an average of about $5,000 in interest and about $15,000 in total payments on their federal student loans,” Mark Kantrowitz, author and student loans expert, wrote in an article.Some borrowers, like Hayes, were able to pay down other debt and weather setbacks. Other borrowers made other progress.
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