This is why I’m not paying my student loans

A huge chunk of student-loan borrowers simply aren’t paying. The pandemic pause on payments may have ended in October, but roughly 40% of borrowers who had bills due that month sat on their wallets and didn’t send a dime to the government. Some experts estimate that even that figure is an undercount, because it likely doesn’t include borrowers whose loans were paused because of servicer errors. 

A huge chunk of student-loan borrowers simply aren’t paying. The pandemic pause on payments may have ended in October, but roughly 40% of borrowers who had bills due that month sat on their wallets and didn’t send a dime to the government. Some experts estimate that even that figure is an undercount, because it likely doesn’t include borrowers whose loans were paused because of servicer errors. 

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia recently offered an explanation for this situation. It reported that more than half of borrowers who didn’t make a payment in October — including some who were on plans allowing them to make payments as a percentage of their income — said it was because they couldn’t afford it.