Officials said Monday that the Education Department will begin collecting student loan debt in default next month, including garnishing wages for potentially millions of borrowers.
Currently, roughly 5.3 million borrowers are in default on their federal student loans.
The Trump administration’s announcement marks an end to a period of leniency that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. No federal student loans, including those in default, have been referred for collection since March 2020. Under President Joe Biden, the Education Department tried multiple times to forgive millions of people’s student loans, only to be stopped by courts.
