5 million student loan borrowers face mandatory collections starting May 5

Some 5 million Americans with defaulted student loan payments will have their loans sent for collections on May 5, the Department of Education announced on Monday.

Next month, for the first time since student loan payments were paused due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Education Department will collect the debts from borrowers who had defaulted -- which means they hadn’t paid their debts for around nine months or 270 days -- before the pandemic.

The announcement comes as scores of Federal Student Aid (FSA) employees have been terminated at the Department of Education as part of President Donald Trump's...