Washington – The Trump administration said Tuesday it will start making payments to delinquent student loan borrowers early next year.
The department said it will send notices to approximately 1,000 borrowers in the week of January 7, with more notices coming each month.
Millions of borrowers are considered delinquent, meaning they are 270 days past due on their payments. The department must give borrowers 30 days notice before their wages can be garnished.
The ministry said it would begin enforcement “only after students and parents who borrow have been adequately informed and given the opportunity to repay their loans.
In May, the Trump administration ended a pandemic-era pause on student loan payments and began collecting delinquent debt through withholding refunds and other federal payments to borrowers.
The move ended the grace period for student loan borrowers. The payments resumed in October 2023, but the Biden administration extended the grace period to one year. As of March 2020, no federal student loans have been foreclosed, including those that are not delinquent, until the Trump administration changes earlier this year.
The Biden administration made several attempts at broad student loan forgiveness, but those efforts were ultimately halted by the courts.
Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, criticized the decision to begin garnishing wages, saying the department failed to do enough to help borrowers find affordable payment options.
“At a time when families across the country are struggling with stagnant wages and an affordability crisis, this administration’s decision to garnish the wages of student loan defaulters is cruel, unnecessary and irresponsible,” Yu said in a statement. “With millions of borrowers sitting on the brink of default, this administration is using its self-inflicted limited resources to garnish borrowers’ wages instead of defending borrowers’ right to affordable payments.”
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