With so many of our Alumni carrying student loan debt, and a large portion enrolled in either the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and / or Income-Driven Repayment plans, we wanted to make sure you had information on how the CARES Act impacts your loans. Please note that the following only applies to federal students loans. The CARES Act did not make any provisions for private student loans (ex. Held by Discover Student Loans). To determine if your student loans qualify as federal student loans, you can ask your servicer or log in to StudentAid.gov and look at your lender.
For those with federal student loans:
- Your payments have been automatically stopped from March 13, 2020 through September 30, 2020. You can still choose to make payments if you want, but are not required to do so.
- Interest rates have been automatically set to 0% on the following types of federal student loans:
- Defaulted and nondefaulted Direct Loans
- Defaulted and nondefaulted Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program loans*
- Federal Perkins Loans*
*Please note that some FFEL Program loans are owned by commercial lenders, and some Perkins Loans are owned by the institution you attended. These loans are not eligible for this benefit at this time.
- Suspended payments will count toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) if you have a Direct Loan, were on a qualifying repayment plan prior to the suspension, and work full-time for a qualifying employer during the suspension.
- For those on an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan, the suspended payments will also count towards IDR forgiveness.
For more information on the CARES Act and federal student loans, see the following resources: