As deadline looms, expert advice on when to restart your federal student loan payments

InvestigateTV - Federal student loan payments have been suspended since March 2020 and during that time millions of Americans took a break from paying back their loans.

However, the program is due to resume August 31 this year. While it is possible the date will be pushed back again, experts suggested you should plan now for when they do restart.

According to the most recent federal data 500,000 people continued to make payments during the suspension, but that number only makes up little more than 1% of all 42.9 million federal loan borrowers.

Michael Joyce, with the financial firm Agili, said you should continue to pause federal loan payments as long as you have the option, and instead tackle those private student loans.

”Take the opportunity to pay those down, so that when the deferral on the government supplied loans comes to an end, you’ll be in better shape to make those payments at that time,” Joyce said.

If you don’t have any private student loans, he said set aside a little extra money each month for the federal student loans so once they come back from deferral you are ready and able to make payments.

For the latest news and information on federal student loans, visit studentaid.gov

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