Student loans

Consumers welcome more generous forgiveness policies and the chance to have past defaults erased from their record, but they need assistance connecting the dots, financial services executives say.

In an NPR/Ipsos poll released Friday, 82% of respondents said they believed making college more affordable should be a bigger priority to the federal government than forgiving existing student debt.

A majority of borrowers who together hold about $400 billion in federal student debt made no payment on their loans in the pandemic era, taking full advantage of a freeze put in place at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.

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.