Over the past year, the Trump administration’s actions on student loans have triggered an unprecedented nationwide student loan delinquency and default crisis that has maximized Americans’ financial distress, not only for borrowers but also their families and communities. This crisis didn’t just occur on the watch of President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon—it was the direct result of their actions.

New analysis1 by The Century Foundation (TCF) and Protect Borrowers reveals that, a year into the current Trump administration, student loan delinquency and default rates have spiked to never-before-seen levels. Specifically, we find that:

  • During the first year of the Trump administration, the student loan delinquency rate rose from roughly zero to nearly 25 percent of borrowers delinquent. One in four student loan borrowers with a payment due is now delinquent, nearly tripling the pre-pandemic delinquency rate in 2019.
  • Nearly 9 million student loan borrowers—or, one out of every five—are in default, which puts them at risk of eventually having their wages and tax refunds garnished. Three-quarters of those currently moving from delinquency into default had never defaulted on a student loan before.
  • If borrowers exiting the Trump-ended SAVE Plan default at the same rate as other borrowers, the total number of student loan borrowers in distress could reach 17 million or more.
  • Over the first three quarters of 2025, borrowers with delinquent student loans have seen their credit scores decrease by 57 points on average, plunging three-quarters of them into “deep subprime” territory. Within that group of delinquent borrowers, 2 million borrowers with credit scores near-prime or better in 2024 saw a credit score decrease of 100 points on average, from 680 to 580.
  • As a result of negative credit impacts, those 2 million borrowers will struggle more to access credit, are projected to pay thousands of dollars more on auto loans and personal loans, and will face new hurdles in securing housing and employment. For example, their cost to lease a used car will rise by 28 percent, on average, as a result of their credit score dropping.
  • Much of the rise in delinquencies can be linked to the Trump administration’s actions aimed at increasing student loan payments. The U.S. Department of Education blocked borrowers from accessing more affordable payments through income-driven plans, having ordered a stoppage in application processing for three months and mass-denying 328,000 applications in August 2025.2 As of December 31, 2025, a warehouse’s worth of 734,000 applications sat unprocessed.3

A Precedent-Shattering Rise in Delinquencies

A staggering number of student loans are in delinquency, now reaching 25 percent of all those with payments due.4 This is nearly three times the delinquency rate before the pandemic (9.2 percent as of 2019). When the multi-year pandemic-era pause ended and federal student loan repayment resumed in October 2023, the Biden administration implemented a one-year “on-ramp” period that shielded borrowers from the economic consequences of falling behind on payments and smoothed their transition back to repayment. Rather than pursuing similar programs, the Trump administration has taken the opposite approach: it has needlessly added harmful roadblocks and barred access to programs that borrowers are entitled to under federal law and that help prevent borrowers from falling behind on their loans. As a result, an estimated 7.9 million student loan borrowers entered delinquency in the first three quarters of 2025, of whom 6.3 million borrowers remained delinquent at the end of the third quarter.5 The average student loan debt of those with a delinquent loan is roughly $34,000.6

Figure 1

As Figure 1 shows, delinquency rates around 25 percent are not a “return to normal”: they mark a clear break from pre-pause precedent and demonstrate the economic fallout of policies enacted over the first year of the Trump administration.

Delinquency rates are higher for Black and Native American borrowers, reaching nearly 50 percent for these groups (see Figure 2). Borrowers who had deep subprime credit scores before the end of the on-ramp period show the highest delinquency rates (see Figure 3).

Figure 2
Figure 3

Delinquency rates are higher for those from lower-income backgrounds. Department of Education data published in December show that a borrower is much more likely to be delinquent or in default if they ever received the Pell Grant (27 percent) than if they didn’t (15 percent).7

As Figure 4 shows, delinquency rates are especially high in states in the Sun Belt (such as Louisiana and Mississippi), the Rust Belt (such as Indiana and Ohio), and the Mid-Atlantic (such as Delaware and Maryland).

Figure 4

The Delinquency Domino Effect on Family Finances

By sinking credit scores, student loan delinquencies have major ramifications for borrowers’ ability to participate fully in the economy. As Figure 5 shows, roughly half of borrowers (51 percent) who had a delinquency in 2025 had deep subprime credit scores the prior year; now, 76 percent of all borrowers with delinquencies have deep subprime credit scores. About half of borrowers with delinquent loans with “deep subprime” scores in 2025 fell there from higher credit tiers in 2024.

Figure 5

Among borrowers with delinquencies across the near-prime, prime, and super-prime credit tiers in 2024, nearly half (47 percent) fell into deep subprime territory in 2025.8 As Figure 6 shows below, this not only wipes out the credit score gains these student loan borrowers made during the pandemic payment pause, but also leaves them even worse than before.

Figure 6

The 2 million student loan borrowers who had a credit score that was near-prime or better in 2024, and whose loans became delinquent in 2025, saw their credit score decrease by 100 points on average, from 680 to 580, plunging them to the edge of deep subprime. The average borrower in this group (shown in yellow in Figure 6) fell from the 39th credit score percentile in 2024 to the 15th percentile in 2025.9

Similar patterns hold for the overall pool of borrowers. The year-over-year drop in the average credit score from 591 to 534 (shown in red in Figure 6) moves a borrower from the 18th percentile down to the 6th, making them much less likely to be approved when they try to rent an apartment, lease a car, or apply for a mortgage.10

Data on loan originations show just how devastating this kind of credit drop can be. Borrowers can rapidly lose access to all kinds of credit or loans, and with them, access to housing, transportation, and the ability to cover basic necessities like groceries, rent, or medical bills. For example, in 2024, 13.4 percent of all mortgages were issued to borrowers with a credit score of 680 or below, while only 1.2 percent went to those with a score of 580 or less, as Figure 7 shows below.

Figure 7

This damage will not be reversed as quickly as it occurred: it takes years to rehabilitate a credit score after a delinquency is added to it. Negative credit information, which includes these delinquencies, doesn’t fade from credit reports for about seven years.11 And our analysis of credit panel data finds that, of the 7.9 million student loan borrowers who experienced a new delinquency in 2025, one in five had never previously experienced a delinquency on any type of loan over the past decade, including 12 percent of borrowers aged 30 and older.

What’s especially tragic is that the long-term costs of a delinquency are staggering compared to the actual money owed.12 When a consumer’s credit score drops from 680 to 580, the following happens:13

  • They are very likely to lose access to thirty-year conventional mortgages. If they are among the 1.3 percent who can obtain one, the lifetime cost rises by well over 8.6 percent, or $63,972 on average (a monthly increase of $178).14
  • Their lifetime cost for a new auto loan rises by 18.4 percent, or $8,830 on average (a monthly increase of $130).
  • Their lifetime cost for a used auto loan rises by 27.9 percent, or $7,300 on average (a monthly increase of $107).
  • Their lifetime cost for a $10,000, year-long personal loan rises by 80.1 percent, or $8,576 on average (a monthly increase of $715).

For comparison, the discretionary income for an average household is $2,250 per month; for the bottom two-fifths of households by income, discretionary income is at or near zero.15 Having to pay, say, $300 more on monthly loan bills can reduce a family’s quality of life and would push many to the financial brink, forcing them perhaps to acquire even more debt in the form of payday loans or “buy now, pay later” schemes to afford basic needs. 

Beyond increased costs when seeking credit, borrowers with delinquencies will also likely struggle to secure an apartment, apply for a job, or get a graduate degree.16 Some apartments require a credit score of at least 650 simply to apply, and 580 falls below the average credit score even for low-end apartment buildings.17 Employers may deny job applicants whose credit scores are low: one study found that, among those with poor credit histories, one in seven was denied a job due to their credit.18 And having a lower credit score will also make it more difficult to obtain the private student loans they may need to return to college, if they join the estimated four in ten of adults whose credit score likely disqualifies them from most private student loans due to underwriting standards.19

A student loan delinquency can wreak financial havoc on borrowers and their families. But the past year hasn’t been a story of individual borrowers making individual mistakes that they’ll pay for over time. It’s a story of a rogue administration slashing a safety net and doing little as Americans fall through it.

The Trump Administration Blocked the Emergency Exits

Why the significant increase in the number of delinquencies now? Despite corporations reaping sky-high profits, families’ budgets are badly stretched, making monthly student loan payments much less affordable. In a June poll, TCF found that nearly half of all Americans (48 percent) said they would have difficulty paying an unexpected $500 bill, including one-quarter of Americans who said it would be “very difficult.”20 And, in a recent survey by The Institute for College Access and Success, 42 percent of borrowers reported having to make tradeoffs between their loan payments and their basic needs.21

Congress did not intend for student loans to break a family’s financial future. By design, they entitle most borrowers to a safety net, a set of programs known as income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. These plans reduce payments for those with low incomes, helping borrowers dodge delinquency and default. But, according to recent Department of Education data, at least four out of five borrowers with a delinquent loan aren’t on an IDR plan.22

The Trump administration had a hand in creating this mess: the Department of Education blocked large numbers of borrowers from enrolling in IDR plans for nearly all of last year. In February, the department pulled down the IDR application and directed student loan servicers—the private contractors paid billions to help struggling borrowers—to halt all processing of IDR applications for three months, the exact period of time when borrowers were grappling with delinquencies and looking for a way out before it impacted their credit.23 In fact, the department only restored the IDR application after it was sued by the American Federation of Teachers for depriving borrowers of their legal right to affordable payments.24

Even after that three-month period, the Department of Education and the servicers it oversees continued failing to approve applications. According to legal filings, the backlog of unprocessed applications for IDR plans stood at 734,000 on December 31 after exceeding 1 million earlier in the year.25 That’s after the department mass rejected 328,000 applications in August, forcing those borrowers to re-apply.26

These actions over the course of the past year have functioned as a kind of a blockade around struggling student loan borrowers, preventing them from getting relief and choking off the help that IDR plans would have provided. Borrowers have been left waiting as the administration’s policies are posing extensive damage to both their financial lives and the broader economy.

As borrowers struggle, they have had fewer civil servants to turn to for help, as the Trump administration has decimated the staffing levels at the Department of Education. Over 2025, the Office of Federal Student Aid, which has primary responsibility for overseeing the servicers who handle student loan repayment, lost 653 employees, a nearly 42 percent decrease from FY 2024.27 Meanwhile, by gutting the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the administration has taken the government’s main student loan watchdog off the board, reducing scrutiny of whether servicers are fulfilling their obligations to students. The administration even intervened to strip down an annual, congressionally mandated report on student loan complaints by the CFPB Student Loan Ombudsman, removing dozens of pages describing protections available to federal borrowers, actions they can take to rehabilitate delinquent loans, and options to get their debt canceled under certain circumstances.28

These decisions have real consequences for borrowers’ ability to get help. Even the pared-back student loan report by the Trump administration’s CFPB shows record-high complaints from student loan borrowers, which in the year ending June 2025 had risen 36 percent since the year ending June 2024 (and nearly tripled from the year ending June 2023).29 The share of federal student loans that did not receive a timely response more than doubled, rising from 11.5 percent in the year ending June 2024 to 24.5 percent in the year ending June 2025.30 After they got a response, over nine in ten borrowers who provided feedback said their concerns were not fully addressed.31 When borrowers sought options, clarity, and guidance, the administration delivered frustration, financial hardship, and no way out. 

A Default Crisis on Our Doorstep

A borrower with a delinquent student loan who is trying to get back on track doesn’t just have to make their next payment: they have to make all of their delinquent payments, or they will default. Many have not been able to do so and have already become late by at least 270 days, the legal definition of default. 

Analysis by Protect Borrowers estimates that in the first year of the Trump administration, every nine seconds another student loan borrower defaulted on their loans, totaling 3.6 million borrowers, adding onto the 5.2 million whose loans defaulted before the payment pause.32 The combined total, a projected 8.8 million, will be the largest number of borrowers in default on record.33 And recent Department of Education data show that, of borrowers who are at least 270 days delinquent, three-quarters had never defaulted before.34

Figure 8, below, shows default rates are highest in states in the Southwest (such as New Mexico and Oklahoma), the Southeast (such as Mississippi), and the Rust Belt (such as West Virginia).

Figure 8

When a borrower enters default, they have limited options and opportunities for exiting default and, as a result, remain there for a long time. Recent Department of Education data show that, of federal student loan borrowers who entered default between 2013 and 2017, more than nine in ten (92 percent) remained for at least a year.35 During those years, half a million borrowers entered default annually, just a fraction of total new defaults occurring now.36 The default system is not prepared for a multi-million-borrower avalanche.

Defaulted loans are at risk of forced collections, such as the garnishment of wages and offsetting of Social Security benefits and tax refunds. In June 2025, in response to public outcry, the Trump administration halted its plans to offset Social Security benefits.37 Following further public pressure, the administration in January paused its plans to subject borrowers to the remaining forced collections tools—a tacit acknowledgement that borrowers won’t have the money to pay their other bills when the government uses tools at its disposal to take money from their wages and tax refunds.38 According to a survey by the CFPB, a majority of borrowers who have defaulted likely earn less than $50,000.39

Considering the nation’s worsening affordability crisis and unprecedented number of borrowers entering default, resuming garnishments would be cruel and economically reckless. Though the pause is welcome, it only puts a band-aid on a serious wound caused by a year of anti-borrower actions.

The Looming Second Wave

We have not even seen the full extent of the possible wreckage of Trump’s student loan crisis. That’s because, following a conservative legal campaign to deny borrowers relief, the crisis of default and delinquency is coming in two waves.40

In 2024, Republican attorneys general sued to stop the enactment of President Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, the most affordable and borrower-friendly IDR plan in history. As the lawsuit proceeded, all 8 million borrowers enrolled in that plan at the time entered a forbearance.

The Republican budget reconciliation law, signed into law by President Trump in July, repealed the SAVE Plan to pay for tax cuts that primarily benefit the ultra-wealthy. Once the SAVE repeal was counted for budget points in the halls of Congress, the administration and the attorneys general settled the lawsuit, forcing all borrowers out of SAVE.

Those borrowers will now have to make monthly payments years before the law would have previously required. Many will become delinquent in the coming months and default in late 2026 or early 2027. Recent Department of Education data show that outstanding debt totaling $400 billion is held by those in the SAVE forbearance, an average of $60,000 per borrower.41 Of that amount, $50 billion is held by borrowers who previously defaulted.42

If the 6.7 million borrowers leaving the SAVE forbearance fall delinquent at the same 25 percent rate as the general population, 1.7 million more borrowers will fall delinquent. This brings the national total of borrowers in distress to nearly 17 million. But this figure is likely a floor, not a ceiling. The SAVE cohort is more financially fragile than the average borrower.43 When combining that vulnerability with the shock of suddenly higher payments, their delinquency rates will most likely exceed the national average.

The Long Shadow of Trump’s Delinquency Crisis

The Trump administration’s preventable failures on student loan debt add to the litany of difficulties families face: rising health care costs and looming loss of insurance coverage, tariff-fueled inflation at the grocery store, SNAP cuts, overwhelming utility costs, and much more.44 Student loan delinquencies and default add to the anguish American communities feel in their wallets, as the costs of all their future loans—for a house, for a car, and for much more—jump upward and remain elevated for years.

Using the SAVE lawsuits as a pretext to hack away at the student loan safety net is not a victimless crime. Rather, it’s a recipe for making costs more expensive over student loan borrowers’ lifetimes. And the money from higher interest rates on mortgages and auto loans all goes into the hands of businesses, not back into American communities.

The Trump administration’s torment of student loan borrowers may shrink Americans’ access to credit on a scale not seen since the financial crisis of 2008. While the administration may view this as a win in their overall assault on higher education, it will do widespread damage to the economy. Real people are suffering, and it’s likely to only get worse.

Appendix: Data and Methodology

This analysis uses individual-level longitudinal credit-bureau data from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel (UC-CCP), a 2 percent nationally representative panel of U.S. adults with credit records. The UC-CCP contains quarterly information on borrowers’ student loan balances, payment obligations, delinquency status, and credit scores. Because credit-bureau data do not allow for complete separation of federal and private student loans, the analysis includes both. Given the panel’s nationally representative design, the composition of loans is assumed to reflect the national distribution, with approximately 90 percent federal and 10 percent private.

Sample Construction

We restrict our sample to individuals who have at least one open student loan tradeline and who have a positive student loan payment obligation in each quarter. Specifically, we require that the borrower’s average monthly payment due across all open student loan accounts is greater than $0. This restriction excludes borrowers whose loans are in deferment, forbearance, grace periods, or other nonpayment statuses. Limiting the sample to borrowers with payments due ensures that delinquency rates reflect repayment outcomes among borrowers expected to be actively making payments.

Delinquency Measurement

Student loan delinquency is measured at the borrower level. A borrower is classified as delinquent in each quarter if at least one student loan tradeline is reported as thirty or more days past due. These borrowers make up the numerator in the delinquency rate. The denominator includes all borrowers with open student loans whose average monthly student loan payment obligation exceeds $0.

Notes

  1. This analysis uses data from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel (UC-CCP), a 2 percent nationally representative sample of U.S. adults with credit records. We measure student loan delinquency among borrowers with open student loans and a positive payment obligation. We thank the California Policy Lab for hosting and documenting the UC-CCP. See “Appendix: Data and Methodology” for details.
  2. Jessica Blake, “Applications for Some Student Loan Repayment Plans Frozen,” Inside Higher Ed, February 26, 2025, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/02/26/trump-admin-pauses-all-income-driven-repayment-plans; Annie Nova, “Over 300,000 student loan borrowers were denied a new repayment plan, court filing shows—here’s why,” CNBC, December 26, 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/26/trump-rejects-student-loan-idr-applications.html.
  3. “Status Report: American Federation of Teachers v. U.S. Department of Education,” U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, January 14, 2026, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278527/gov.uscourts.dcd.278527.60.0.pdf.
  4. This excludes those without a payment due, such as those in the large-scale forbearance initiated by lawsuits over the SAVE Plan.
  5. Author’s analysis of the University of California Consumer Credit Panel (UC-CCP), a 2 percent nationally representative sample of U.S. adults with credit records. See Appendix: Data and Methodology for details.
  6. Ibid.
  7. Derived from data shared by the U.S. Department of Education in response to a data request during Negotiated Rulemaking, October 2025. The department’s data is accessible via New America. This analysis does not include those who were in default at the time of the pause (March 2020), who are in the SAVE forbearance, and those with only closed loans.
  8. That is, about 952,000 out of 2.01 million.
  9. Author’s analysis of the University of California Consumer Credit Panel (UC-CCP), a 2 percent nationally representative sample of U.S. adults with credit records. See Appendix: Data and Methodology for details.
  10. Ibid.
  11. Ann Carrns, “Those Missed Student Loan Payments Are Messing Up Your Credit Score,” New York Times, September 19, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/your-money/student-loans-credit-scores.html.
  12. Jennifer Zhang, “Deep Dive: The Hidden Costs of Delinquency: Subprime Credit, Predatory Loans, and Debt Traps,” Protect Borrowers, June 26, 2025, https://protectborrowers.org/resource/deep-dive-the-hidden-costs-of-delinquency-subprime-credit-predatory-loans-and-debt-traps/.
  13. Source: Author’s analysis of market data on purchase prices and interest rates compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Experian, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, Kelley Blue Book, and CarEdge.
  14. Mortgages are rarely issued to those with a credit score of 580, so the nearest-reported score (620) was substituted for the purposes of the analysis in this bullet.
  15. Ana Hernández Kent and William M. Rodgers III, “That Extra Money: A Primer on Discretionary Income,” The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, August 6, 2025, https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2025/aug/primer-discretionary-income.
  16. Jennifer Streaks, “Credit needed to rent: Understanding requirements for tenants,” Business Insider, Oct 3, 2024, https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/credit-score/credit-score-needed-to-rent-apartment; Ben Luthi, “What to Know About Employment and Your Credit,” Experian, n.d., accessed January 2026, https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/credit-education/life-events/employment/; Peter Granville, “The FICO Factor: GOP Megabill Will Limit Who Gets to Access College,” The Century Foundation, July 21, 2025, https://tcf.org/content/report/the-fico-factor-gop-megabill-will-limit-who-gets-to-access-college/.
  17. Katherine Blake, Tristian Brown, Davina Ward, Emily Kho, and Susan Finch, “What Credit Score Do I Need to Rent?” Apartment List, July 9, 2025, https://www.apartmentlist.com/renter-life/credit-score-needed-to-rent-apartment; Florentina Sarac, “The Average Credit Score Needed to Rent an Apartment is on the Rise – SF, Boston and NY Top the List,” RentCafe, February 2, 2021, https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/credit-score-to-rent-an-apartment/.
  18. Amy Traub, “Discredited: How Employment Credit Checks Keep Qualified Workers Out of a Job,” Demos, February 2013, https://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/Discredited-Demos_0.pdf.
  19. Peter Granville, “The FICO Factor: GOP Megabill Will Limit Who Gets to Access College,” The Century Foundation, July 21, 2025, https://tcf.org/content/report/the-fico-factor-gop-megabill-will-limit-who-gets-to-access-college/; Tomás E. Monarrez, Jordan Matsudaira & Dubravka Ritter, “Student Loans for Graduate School: Who Will Be Affected by the New Federal Lending Limits?” Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, December 2025, https://www.philadelphiafed.org/consumer-finance/education-finance/student-loans-for-graduate-school.
  20. Julie Margetta Morgan and Rachel West, “The Hidden Costs of Trump’s Economy: Skipped Meals, Rising Debt, and the Impossible Choices Facing American Families,” The Century Foundation, July 31, 2025, https://tcf.org/content/report/the-hidden-costs-of-trumps-economy-skipped-meals-rising-debt-and-the-impossible-choices-facing-american-families/.
  21. Michele Zampini, “On the Edge of a ‘Default Cliff’: New Survey Shows Student Loan Borrowers Are Struggling to Keep Up,” The Institute for College Access and Success, December 5, 2025, https://ticas.org/affordability-2/2025-student-debt-survey-blog/.
  22. Derived from data shared by the Department of Education in response to a data request during Negotiated Rulemaking, October 2025. The department’s data is accessible via New America at https://www.newamerica.org/documents/9751/Data_Request_3_Response_DRT824.xlsx.
  23. Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, “It could be months before affordable student loan repayment plans return,” The Washington Post, February 28, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/02/27/student-loan-repayment-options-affordable-pause/.
  24. “AFT v. ED Update: Under Pressure, ED Will Restore IDR Application Tomorrow But Will Not Immediately Resume IDR Paperwork Processing,” Protect Borrowers, March 25, 2025, https://protectborrowers.org/update-under-pressure-ed-will-restore-idr-app-but-not-immediately-resume-processing/.
  25. “Status Report: American Federation of Teachers v. U.S. Department of Education,” U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, January 14, 2026, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278527/gov.uscourts.dcd.278527.60.0.pdf.
  26. Annie Nova, “Over 300,000 student loan borrowers were denied a new repayment plan, court filing shows—here’s why,” CNBC, December 26, 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/26/trump-rejects-student-loan-idr-applications.html.
  27. “Workforce Changes,” Office of Personnel Management, n.d., data as of November 2025, accessed January 2026, https://data.opm.gov/explore-data/analytics/workforce-changes; “Staffing Levels and the Department of Education—Five Things to Know,” Bipartisan Policy Center, December 4, 2025, https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/staffing-levels-and-the-department-of-education-five-things-to-know/.
  28. Rebecca Carballo, “Watchdog agency scales back student loan report,” Politico, January 14, 2026, https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/14/watchdog-agency-scales-back-student-loan-report-00727009.
  29. “Annual Report of the CFPB Private Education Student Loan Ombudsman,” Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, January 2026, https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_pelo-annual-report_2026-01.pdf.
  30. Ibid.
  31. Ibid.
  32. “New Analysis Finds That a Student Loan Borrower Defaulted Every Nine Seconds in 2025, as Trump Restarts Wage Garnishment,” Protect Borrowers, January 7, 2026, https://protectborrowers.org/new-analysis-finds-that-a-student-loan-borrower-defaulted-every-nine-seconds-in-2025-as-trump-restarts-wage-garnishment/.
  33. The prior peak of 7.9 million occurred in Q2 2020. See “Portfolio by Loan Status (DL, FFEL, ED-Held FFEL, ED-Owned)” via the FSA Data Center.
  34. Derived from data shared by the Department of Education in response to a data request during Negotiated Rulemaking, October 2025. The Department’s data is accessible via New America.
  35. Ibid.
  36. Ibid.
  37. “Trump Administration Caves on Plans to Snatch Social Security Benefits After Months of Pressure From Borrower Advocates,” Protect Borrowers, June 3, 2025, https://protectborrowers.org/trump-administration-caves-on-plans-to-snatch-social-security-benefits-after-pressure-from-borrower-advocates/; Annie Nova, “Trump administration changes mind, won’t cut Social Security benefits over defaulted student loans,” CNBC, June 2, 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/02/trump-pauses-social-security-benefit-cuts-over-defaulted-student-loans.html.
  38. “Amidst Growing Affordability Crisis, Trump Administration Abandons Plans to Subject Millions of Borrowers and Their Families to Draconian Forced Collections,” Protect Borrowers, January 16, 2026, https://protectborrowers.org/trump-admin-abandons-plans-to-subject-millions-of-borrowers-to-draconian-forced-collections/.
  39. Isabelle Caldwell, Thomas Conkling, West Garrett, Christa Gibbs, Cooper Luce, and Michael Murto, “Insights from the 2023−2024 Student Loan Borrower Survey,” Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, November 2024, https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_Insights-from-the-2023-2024-Student-Loan-Borrower-Survey_Report.pdf.
  40. Peter Granville, Tiara Moultrie, and Jordan Nellums, “The Assault on the SAVE Plan Has Brought Student Debt Relief to a Crossroads,” The Century Foundation, January 14, 2025, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/the-assault-on-the-save-plan-has-brought-student-debt-relief-to-a-crossroads/.
  41. Derived from data shared by the Department of Education in response to a data request during Negotiated Rulemaking, October 2025. The department’s data is accessible via New America.
  42. Ibid.
  43. As of April 2024, more than half of SAVE Plan borrowers qualified for a $0 payment, meaning more than 50 percent of SAVE Plan borrowers had earnings under 225 percent of the Federal Poverty Line. By comparison, only 30 percent of student loan borrowers overall had earnings under 225 percent of the Federal Poverty Line in April 2024, according to data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).
  44. Jeanne Lambrew, “It’s Official: Americans Will Pay Much More for All Types of Health Coverage in 2026—Including Medicare,” The Century Foundation, November 19, 2025, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/its-official-americans-will-pay-much-more-for-all-types-of-health-coverage-in-2026-including-medicare/; Jeanne Lambrew, “16 Million Americans Could Lose Health Coverage under Republican Plans,” The Century Foundation, June 5, 2025, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/16-million-americans-could-lose-health-coverage-under-republican-plans/; Kelly Tyko and Ben Berkowitz, “Grocery inflation highest since 2022 as Trump tariffs pile up,” Axios, September 11, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/09/11/trump-tariffs-grocery-prices-rise-cpi; Katie Bergh and Dottie Rosenbaum, “Many Low-Income People Will Soon Begin to Lose Food Assistance Under Republican Megabill,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 10, 2025, https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/many-low-income-people-will-soon-begin-to-lose-food-assistance-under; Julie Margetta Morgan, Mike Pierce, and Eduard Nilaj, “Fueling Debt: How Rising Utility Costs Are Overwhelming American Families,” The Century Foundation, November 17, 2025, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/fueling-debt-how-rising-utility-costs-are-overwhelming-american-families/.

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