My partner and I have about 60k in student loans and haven’t been paying even though they started back in October. I’m waiting to see if maybe we just shouldn’t. I remember there being chatter about how Nelnet and other loan holders had like laid off a bunch of people during the pause and hadn’t hired them back, and the system is overloaded and fucked, and how are people suddenly going to pay a big monthly expense anyway, etc etc. But if people were to not pay them, I feel like the media would not want to perpetuate that narrative and build it into something real by spreading the word so to speak. So I don’t know if there’s a way to gauge is people are actually paying them? Does anyone know?
The forgiveness on it is wonky. There are different income groups where you only have to pay X% of your monthly statement and the rest of that month is forgiven. Maybe you technically owe $300 a month, but your payment is $15 and the other $285 is forgiven each month. The lowest income group has a monthly payment rate of $0 with the rest forgiven. It’s incredibly convoluted and stupid, but it was intentionally designed so that only the wealthiest/biggest morons actually pay the full amount.