Student loans

Millions of U.S. students just found out how much they’ll have to pay on student loans for the coming school session — and it’s a lot more than last year.

The San Francisco-based online lender originated more than $2 billion in personal loans during the first quarter, a big jump from a year earlier. The surge made up for softness in the company's home loan and student loan businesses.

GradFin offers advisory services to Americans who want assistance with their student loans. The acquisition is part of the Cleveland bank’s strategy of adding niche digital businesses.

During the pandemic, consumer lenders have found it easier to collect payments because the federal student loan moratorium has made many borrowers more liquid. A plan for blanket forgiveness reportedly under consideration by President Biden could sustain that trend.

President Biden said he’s considering a plan to relieve student debt in the coming weeks, but that it would fall short of the sweeping forgiveness sought by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and progressive Democrats.

The U.S. moratorium on student-loan payments is slated to be lifted at the end of August, but more than half of borrowers said in a survey that they wouldn’t be able to make a single monthly payment today if they had to.

The Biden administration once again extended the pause on student loan payments enacted to help borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic, this time through the end of August.

Federal student loan borrowers are likely to experience a notable increase in delinquencies once forbearance concludes in May, a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found.

Numerous unaccredited and loosely regulated schools are offering buy now/pay later products as a payment option for students, according to the Student Borrower Protection Center. Its report, which called out PayPal, Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay, comes as the CFPB is considering how to regulate the sector.

Americans with student loans are about to get a stark wake-up call on their borrowings as government relief programs phase out, according to a blog post by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.