Just over half of the millions of borrowers who received their first federal student loan bills in years in October — after the pandemic freeze ended — have paid the bills, the Education Department said on Friday, the New York Times reported. Forty-three million borrowers collectively owe the government $1.6 trillion in student loan debt. In March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic roiled the nation’s economy, President Donald J. Trump’s administration imposed a freeze on collections as an emergency relief measure. The moratorium was extended nine times by Congress, Mr. Trump and his successor, President Biden — until this fall, when it finally ended. Officials had long warned that getting borrowers accustomed to paying again after such a long break would be a rocky process, especially after the Supreme Court in June overturned Mr. Biden’s $400 billion plan to forgive up to $20,000 in debt per borrower. Tens of millions of people would have benefited from that relief. Instead, 22 million people had to make their first payment in years in October as the government restarted its collection machinery. Sixty percent of them paid the bill by mid-November, according to James Kvaal, the Education Department’s under secretary. (Borrowers who are still in school or recently left do not yet owe on their debts. Also, some borrowers’ payment deadlines were extended because of loan servicing errors.) That leaves nearly nine million borrowers who had payments due but have not yet made them. Many people “will need more time,” Mr. Kvaal said Friday in a written statement. “Some are confused or overwhelmed about their options.”
