Health economics
2026-04-26
10 minute read
19 sources
US Student Loans After the Pause: SAVE Unwound, Project 2025 Reforms, and the 2026 Repayment Reset
Federal student loans returned to billing in October 2023 after a 3.5 year COVID pause. The 12 month on ramp shielded credit reports through September 2024. Then SAVE was enjoined, then struck down. By Q1 2025, 12.6 percent of borrowers in repayment were 90 plus days delinquent, the worst delinquency print in the history of the New York Fed Household Debt and Credit Report. The 2026 reset is not a return to 2019. It is a rewrite.
The federal student loan portfolio sits at roughly 1.65 trillion dollars across about 43 million borrowers as of Q4 2024, per Federal Student Aid Data Center quarterly reports. Payments resumed in October 2023 after a pause that ran from March 2020 through September 2023, and the Biden Department of Education layered a 12 month on ramp th...