After the student loan pause
Student loans and student debt appear on only 12 recent papers, none of them in the last quarter, even though US repayments restarted in 2023 after a three-year pause and delinquencies then jumped. Did the pause change borrowers' finances for good, and what happened when payments resumed?
What prompted this
Since October 2025, 12 papers carry a student-loan or student-debt keyword (7 in economics journals, 3 in finance): "student loans" on 8, "student debt" on 7. None of the 12 was published in July–September 2026, against about 4 per quarter earlier, while household debt as a whole remains an active topic.
Questions
- During the pause, did borrowers pay down other debt, save, or borrow more, and did those who kept paying differ?
- When payments resumed, how many borrowers fell behind, and did the new income-driven plans and their legal reversals change that?
- Did the pause and the forgiveness debates change enrolment or borrowing by new students?
Data that could help
Credit bureau panels with student loan balances and payment status, the Department of Education's repayment statistics, and enrolment data.
Next step
Use a credit bureau panel to follow borrowers' balances and delinquencies on all accounts from 2019 through 2025.