From the Washington Sun (formerly known as NOTUS):

Trump administration officials are preparing to impose financial penalties on millions of Americans in default on their federal student loans next year, according to five sources familiar with the matter.

The Treasury Department is moving forward with plans to hire private debt collectors, three of the sources said, possibly as soon as November. The sources said those plans are unlikely to be announced before the midterm elections.

The planning — which has not been previously reported — shows the administration gearing up to move forward with a policy it previously put on hold out of concern for the potential consequences for the nearly 10 million borrowers in default.

The administration has grappled with internal divisions between federal agencies over how to manage the government’s $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio. Last year, the White House Office of Management and Budget began assisting the Education Department in preparing to seize federal benefits and wages from defaulted borrowers, the sources said. Treasury Department officials blocked that effort, expressing concern about the economic costs of taking punitive measures against workers.

Since then, Treasury officials have unveiled a new online portal that makes it easier for students to understand what they owe and how to pay in hopes of avoiding further penalties. The administration’s preference remains to get borrowers into a plan where they will make voluntary payments.

While some administration officials are pushing to garnish benefits and wages for the current tax year — meaning for the tax year deadline of April 15, 2027 — sources cautioned that it may be delayed again, as the administration wants to ensure that Treasury’s new Defaulted Loans Support Center is working.

Read more here:

https://www.washingtonsun.com/economy/trump-aides-plan-penalize-defaulting-student-loan-borrowers

I’ve been slowly (very slowly) been paying on my loan (25k) since 2013 with three periods of deferment and forbearance. It was with Great Lakes and got moved to Nelnet. I missed three payments (my last payment of around $250 in June which was my IDR repayment plan amount) and logged in yesterday to finally make a payment. And… it’s gone? It says $0 owed and that the final payment was made on the 16th of June for the FULL amount. I obviously did not make this payment. I didn’t have that money. So I checked student gov and it says the same thing. I have not received any information about Nelnet selling my loan to anyone else nor has anyone else contacted me about it. Umm… so… do I just chill…? I’m baffled.

Hey everyone, I need to re-certify by October 28th. Not looking forward to it, but for the people who are on nelnet, have any of you gone passed your due date without re-certifying? If so, what happened? Do they give you an extra 30 days?

Thanks!

I was stupid and forgot to recertify for income driven repayment plan. Last year I had to and this year apparently I had to. It use to automatically do it but recently has been requiring me to manually update it.

Nelnet’s really only email about recertification was in August and didn’t say how much my payment would go up. Last year when this first happened, it was a different time of the year and jumped from $400 to $750. That was pretty shocking to me.

I checked my bank account last night and my payment of $433 jumped to $2400. I was absolutely in tears. It went to a Pay as you Earn plan but I have no idea how it went to that amount. I make two $2,700 paychecks a month after taxes, essentially taking half my income. It drained my account and dipped into my small savings I started recently.

I work in public interest and have been working towards PSLF.

I post this for two reasons:
1) as a warning to be on top of recertification… I immediately recertified after that. If this can happen, this completely changes my view if I could afford any sort of mortgage in the next year.
2) ask some questions. Has anyone been successful in calling Nelnet to go back on a payment? How long do they take to recertify? I’m debating if I need to turn off autopay.

hello, i’m in law school and i went to make my second interest payment today and i noticed two things that weren’t right.

my last recorded payment date was not correct at all. my loans were dispersed on August 17th. I paid my first interest payment on September 17th (it took until the 24th of sept. to post to my bank account). today, i noticed that it said it was paid august 10th.

I calculated my monthly interest to be 336 a month. last month it was 237 and this month it said 377.

my loan facts are: unsubsidized grad loan
50k principle
8.07 interest rate

i calculated my monthly loan payment to be 609 a month (336 a month in interest). i figured last month when it was short that was because i did my math using the entire 50k principle amount and they only released half for the first semester.

anyone know why my payment date is messed up or where im going wrong with interest payment calculations?

Anyone have any experience with this?

I recently tried to pay my student loan bill for the month (due on Oct. 15th, paid it on the 13th). Today I received an email stating that my payment status was deliquent and so I logged in to see what was going on.

In my inbox I received a letter stating that my "financial institution rejected the payment," but this is not the case. My bank account never received any request for this transaction. No pending status, no bounced payment, nothing flagged for fraud.

So, it would appear that Nelnet rejected my payment (regardless of whatever loophole they used to do so) and lied about it.

is this not illegal?

Hi-

I have quite a bit of credit card debt, which I’ve meticulously shuffled around with a plan to get it all handled within 10 months or less. No interest during this time. Enter the loan obligation, and plans may have to change.

I would like to get a deferment or forbearance til next year when I can fully commit my extra income to loans. Do I just let them throw me onto a new plan? I’m on SAVE with it ending 10/28. I figure I can then contact them to push off repayment. Any flaws in this plan? Should I move over to a new plan before this?

I'm on SAVE Forbearance and recently saw a slight drop in my credit score. I know it is due to the accumulating interest on my student loans, which causes my debt to increase overall. I don't have any late payments or default. Student loan interest has been accumulating since last year but it did not affect my credit score until now.

My question is: Is this credit score drop a one time thing or will it continue to drop every month?

I've seen mixed answers in older posts so I would like to hear what your experience is. Every point matters to me because I'm planning to make a big purchase soon...

Thanks in advance!

Hi I’m currently in my first year of grad school and I’m looking for a private lender. I’ve already applied to a few but have been getting denied because I defaulted on my undergrad loans from a few years back. Before anyone says don’t do private loans and that they’re predatory. I KNOW. I just need the money now so I can pay for school. I’m on the road to becoming a doctor so the loans will be paid off. I don’t care how predatory the interest is at this point, I just need lenders that will accept me. I have a strong co-signer, but I’m still being denied because of the default on my history even though I’ve consolidated my loans. If anyone has been in this situation please let me know of any lenders that will accept. Once again I do not care how predatory these lenders are I just need the money asap. Thank you!

I applied on July 16 online, uploaded the hard copy from my neurologist on July 28. I was approved on October 16, 2026.

Good luck to everyone! I pray you are all approved!

I was approved for SSDI based on my disability in July 2026, with an onset date in 2024. According to my award letter, I'm on a 3-year CDR cycle.

The only question I had is, I was seeing some conflicting information. Am I currently eligible for a TPD discharge on this approval, or do I have to go through one CDR first before I can apply?

Thanks!

Sharing my recent experience with the SAVE transition in case it is helpful to anyone else. I recently switched off of SAVE after riding my 90 day letter to the end, I switched to RAP (which I will probably regret but it was the lowest payment for me) and I'm on the PSLF. I applied through my servicer aidvantage and it was processed and approved within one week so surprisingly fast. Also they sent me an email that my application had been submitted, but then no notice when it was approved or that my payment was due. I only saw it when I went into the account and saw my payment was due in 2 days. So thanks for that aidvantage. Watch your account and don't sit around waiting like I did. Also my official repayment amount was exactly what the calculator said when I applied, based on my last tax statement.

Hello, I am an 18 year old preparing to apply for Sallie Mae loans. I will find a co-signer. I want to move abroad and live in the Netherlands, because life in the US isn’t great and I want to live life elsewhere. For my entire undergraduate degree, I will need to take out about €44,100 (~$49,000).

I have done research on how predatory Sallie Mae is, but in the end, this is seemingly one of the only ways to fund my future. I will make it work and do whatever is needed, but I am looking for advice. If anyone has a similar story, advice, or experience with Sallie Mae, I would appreciate it!

Thanks for reading.

If we are doing any type of IDR or plan that will be forgiven, is there even a reason to get on autopay besides it ensuring you won’t be late?

Hi. I am wondering if someone could help me with a few questions I have. My wife and I are planning to move to the 10 year Standard Repayment plan from SAVE for personal loans. We have saved some money that we can put towards those loans but we are closing in on the date (Oct 27th) where we will be automatically put into the plan. I do not believe we can get everything in order to make the payments ahead of that date. I have 3 questions.

1. If we switch to the Standard Plan now the calculation is going to be on the current loan balance. If we make large payments afterward in November to the highest interest rate loans, will the repayment amount recalculate automatically? I am reading mixed reviews about this in other threads and we really want to have the payment lowered to a manageable amount after the payments we make.
2. If we switch from SAVE to Standard Plan I am aware that that would not cause interest to capitalize. Would switching from the Standard Plan to another plan cause interest to capitalize? Is there any other scenario I should be aware of that could cause capitalized interest?
3. We are attempting to do the avalanche method to pay the debt down. Is there a better repayment plan to use besides the Standard Plan? It sounds like possibly switching to an IDR plan (PAYE) or the Extended Fixed Repayment plan to lower monthly payments and then targeting the highest interest rate loan might be the better option. Which plan is best? I believe we could get tax reductions (filing jointly if we went with the Extended plan) but could have lower payments with PAYE.

Thank you for the help!

I have a loan of about 5 years that I started paying about 1 year ago. The other years were $0.

The total amount was about 18500,
After paying my loans for a year at around $65 a month. it came to 18200 ish after a whole year of paying. I was really disheartened. I realized I was paying more on the interest than the actual principal of the loan.
I wanted clarification on IBR.
If I do not qualify for PSLF, do I still get loan forgiveness?
If says after my loan term, there is a discharge amount for around $10k, does this 10k disappear or is this the "tax bomb" that I have to pay afterwards? What happens to this 10k?

If i switch to a normal repayment plan, It will be around $200 more per month but no discharge amount and I Pay $20k instead for the life of the loan.

What do I do so i dont get screwed over by interest?

As the title says! Just made a final, lump sum payment of $7473 to finish off what was left. Borrowed a total of around 70k for bachelors and masters combined. Have been working 2 jobs over the past year with every spare dime being thrown at these loans to accelerate the process. Super excited to see it finally pay off!!

I had every intention of continuing bi-weekly payments and having them done in February, but given some recent issues I’ve been having with MOHELA and their payment allocations, I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet. Was super fortunate to have the savings and enough emergency cushion behind it to make this move. Was worried I would feel regret, but absolutely none here! Student debt free for the first time since…sheesh…2010 just after high school??

What a feeling! Big thanks to this sub and specifically the positive posts for supplemental motivation 💪 you guys rock! Definitely made the journey more meaningful knowing I wasn’t walking it alone.

I’ve never been to college. I logged into studentaid.gov and I apparently have $9k in student loans that I am in default in. I know this was my mom since she was attending college at that time and had access to my social security card. I don’t know what to do. My credit is ruined. Any advice?

I need to recertify my federal student loans for my income-driven repayment plan. My loans have been in forbearance for the past several years, so I haven’t had to recertify until now.

I’ve been unemployed for a long time and have been in a substance abuse treatment program for the past year. The only money I’ve received has come from selling stocks through an employee stock program from a job I left several years ago. I sold about $6,000 worth of stock this past year. I also haven’t filed taxes in the past two years.

I’m trying to figure out what I should report as my income when recertifying. Do I report the $6,000 I received from selling stocks, or is my income calculated differently? What documentation would I need?

I know I’m in a difficult financial position, but I’m working on getting my life back together. I’ve been sober for nine months and am starting to look for work again, so please be kind. I know my situation isn’t ideal, but I’m genuinely trying to get back on my feet.

Trying to set up auto recertification of my husband's Income Based Repayment.

We checked and his account on studentaid . gov and we see this:

Income-Driven Repayment (IDR)

Consent on file

If you wish to import your information electronically into your application, you first have to provide consent to us to access that information.

Additionally, you may be eligible for auto-recertification of your IDR plan on its recertification date, provided, you have consent on file.

So he has given consent to have his info accessed, but we can't see how to set it up for auto recertification. It doesn't give us any link to setting that up.

Anyone have any ideas?

According to the studentaid.gov backdoor payment counter, in August my mom had made 298 qualifying payments out of 300. She has made 2 additional payments since then so should be at forgiveness. But her payment counter is not updating. It hasn't updated since June. Is it normal for it to be four months behind?

Applied to recertify my idr plan that would end 11/01.

I recertified manually on student aid.gov 9/11.

About a week later Got correspondence from mohela that my plan was submitted and then later approved then provided with standard amount. Then more correspondence that my plan would start once 12 month period ends.

I was on small forbearance 9/18-10/5

Now show no longer in forbearance with 0.00 payment for 11/01, previously had current plan amount due for that date.

Is this a processing forebarance?

My recertification application idr is still showing review on student aid. Gov, and I called mohela they say its been approved with the amount the student aid. Gov showed me.

Edit: a processing

In August I used the repayment calculator and was shown the option of ICR and it gave a discharge date of April 2027 and amount so I applied. Today I received notice it was approved but none of the documents mention the discharge date or amount. I can only afford the new monthly payment until the date they provided - how do I ensure the discharge happens? What steps do I have to take?