There’s plenty of blame to go around for high nonpayment rates, with policies implemented by Presidents Biden and Trump contributing to the confusion. During the COVID pandemic, Trump temporarily paused student loan repayments, and Biden extended that pause and provided an “on-ramp,” temporarily limiting consequences for missing payments once the pause ended in 2023. Pausing payments made sense when many Americans quickly lost income, but people apparently got out of the habit of repaying loans.
Since then, years of litigation over various student loan forgiveness proposals and repayment plans have made repayment even more confusing. While the Biden administration tried to expand loan forgiveness, Trump has sought to limit it. Last week, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit in which some states and the Trump administration sought to block a federal student loan repayment plan created by the Biden administration. That plan is now set to be phased out in 2028 in favor of a less generous plan approved by Congress in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Additionally, rising costs of living and an uncertain economy have made it harder for some borrowers to afford loan repayment.
The biggest need is for education — for government, colleges, loan servicers, and even employers and professional associations — to ensure borrowers understand their options for income-based repayment plans.
Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology, a nonprofit technical college in Boston, offers an example of how a school with a population at risk of defaulting can respond. The Department of Education data, which tracks borrowers who entered repayment between January 2020 and May 2025, found that 34 percent of borrowers who attended Franklin Cummings Tech were at least 90 days behind on payments. That was the second-highest nonpayment rate in Massachusetts after Pine Manor College, a private college serving low-income, first-generation students (it merged with Boston College in 2020). High default rates are problematic for schools, since federal law can strip eligibility for federal financial aid from institutions where borrowers have consistently high default rates.
In September, Franklin Cummings Tech hired IonTuition, paying the company $18,000 to contact former students who fell behind on their loans and help them connect with their loan servicers and enter repayment plans. The school also improved in-house financial aid counseling to ensure incoming students have a financial plan and that they understand their repayment options when they graduate. IonTuition reported in February that the number of students with delinquent loans dropped from 61 to 29 for the cohort that began owing money in 2023, from 68 to 35 for the 2024 cohort, and from 90 to 60 for the 2025 cohort, with work ongoing.
Although most Franklin Cummings Tech students take out relatively small loans — often $5,000 or $7,000 a year, according to school officials — President Aisha Francis said many students were the first in their family to attend college and don’t know how to navigate student loan repayment. Additionally, between 2020 and 2023, there was an expectation that student loan debt would be deferred and potentially discharged. “Particularly for very low-income, first-generation students of color in communities of color, there’s been lot of shifting of national narratives around how you take care of student loan and educational debt,” Francis said.
In addition to education about loan repayment, there is also a need for colleges to ensure students complete their degrees, since students who drop out are more likely to default.
Many Massachusetts community colleges, which struggle with low completion rates, have loan nonpayment rates of around 20 percent, according to the Department of Education. Nate Mackinnon, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges, said the number of students taking out loans is declining now that Massachusetts offers free community college, but some students still use loans to cover living expenses.
While the Trump administration has put the onus on colleges to help students avoid default, the federal government also bears responsibility. In February 2025, the Trump administration directed student loan servicers to stop accepting applications for income-driven repayment plans for three months, a decision reversed by a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Teachers. The Century Foundation report says there remains a backlog of unprocessed applications for income-driven repayment plans, which allow borrowers with low incomes to adjust their payments downward. Trump also decimated staffing at the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which oversee student loan servicers.
Anyone truly struggling to afford student loan repayments should be able to find an income-driven repayment plan that works for them. Government, loan servicers, and colleges should help needy borrowers enroll in these plans.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.
