When and Why Interest Resumes

After a federal injunction struck down parts of the SAVE plan, servicers will begin charging interest again on impacted loans as of August 1, 2025. This action follows an Eighth Circuit ruling in February 2025 and a district court injunction in April requiring the Department of Education to restore interest on affected accounts :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}.

What It Means for Your Payment

With interest back on the books:

• Monthly payments may jump by about $300 on average—adding roughly $3,500 in interest over a year :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}.
• Unpaid interest will capitalize when your next income recertification hits, increasing your principal balance.
• New standard rates for 2025–26: 6.39% for undergraduates, 7.94% for graduate/professional borrowers, and 8.94% on Parent PLUS loans :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}.

Three Steps to Take Today

1. Check Your Servicer Dashboard
   Log in and note any new “Interest Charged” line items for July and August.
2. Pay the Accruing Interest
   Even an interest-only payment stops your balance from growing.
3. Compare Repayment Plans
   Review SAVE, REPAYE, and the upcoming Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) launching in 2026. Early budgeting for RAP’s lower payments can ease the transition.

Key Takeaways:

• Federal student loan interest pauses under the SAVE plan ends August 1, 2025.
• The average borrower could see payments rise by roughly $300/month (about $3,500/year).
• Immediate steps—checking your servicer statement, paying interest, and exploring plans—can limit balance growth.

Peeking Ahead: Policy Changes on the Horizon

Congress is also debating broader student-loan reforms. One proposal would cut rates to 2% and allow refinancing of private loans at government rates :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}. Meanwhile, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” package (effective July 1, 2026) would sunset existing income-driven plans like SAVE and REPAYE by 2028, replacing them with a simpler structure under RAP.

These days, it is important to know if you have a Pell Grant — $10,000 in loan forgiveness *might* be riding on it. If Biden’s 10/20K student loan forgiveness plan stands up to the court challenges, then you will want to know if you have a Pell Grant, because if you do, you receive an extra $10K in forgiveness.

So, without a Pell Grant, you can expect up to $10K, with a Pell grant, you can expect up $20K. The question becomes then, how do you know if you have ever had a Pell grant. After all, some of us are old, and we just don’t remember. Well, it’s easier than you might think, and in the interest of clickbait, I am here to show you how.

First though, you must have an account on the Department of Education’s website for all-things student loan related: https://studentaid.gov/. If you do not already have an account created, you will need to create an account, then they confirm it, you get an e-mail, and then you are able to go through this process of finding out if you have a Pell Grant.

So, first things first, you need to to https://studentaid.gov/ and Log in. That button is in the upper, right hand corner of the website, next to the button that you saw and hopefully clicked when you were creating your account. After you have provided your login credentials, there is page that pops up that you need to accept. It will be there every time you access the web site. They are reminding you that it is government web site and not to do anything sketchy.

After you have logged in, and accepted the little page of rules, the very next page you see is called your Dashboard.









The most prominent feature on the dashboard is your aid. On the left are your “federally backed” loans. On the right are your grants. In the image above, this person has one grant, and you can see that it is even identified as a Pell Grant at the bottom.

If you wanted to know even more about your grants, then you would need to click on View Details. Then click Grants Or you can use this direct link: https://studentaid.gov/aid-summary/grants

This page would be useful if you had different types of grants.

That is it, that is all you have to do to find out if you have a Pell Grant. Good luck!

Yes, this includes me, and yes, I am excited, elated, stunned, shocked. I am every wonderful emotion under the sun, and that is okay. If the settlement is signed, I will have my ITT loan forgiven, and I will receive a refund of what I have already paid.

If you found this page, and you don’t know what a DTR is, or what is going on, please follow the link to https://predatorystudentlending.org/ and read more there.

Here is the link.

PDF File that includes list of schools
Proposed Sweet Settlement Agreement

Fail State is a 2017 feature-length documentary film chronicling the public policy decisions and marketing ploys that contributed to the growth of predatory for-profit colleges in the 2000s, and you can watch it now on Amazon for free, with ads.


The documentary examines how the changing economics of higher education contributed to mistreatment of low-income and minority students and includes interviews with experts, former college recruiters, former and current students, and former and current government officials such as F. King Alexander and Suzanne Mettler. It traces the problem back to a decision by Congress in the 1970s to switch from providing aid to colleges to instead allocating grants and loans to students to pay tuition at colleges. The move contributed to a market-based system that offered choice but also rewarded recruiting schemes targeting vulnerable populations.
credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail_State

Key takeaways:
Obama was the only President since Reagan that didn’t fuck students.
The history of it all. No Suzy, this didn’t start in 2016.

It’s definitely worth watching.

This is just a graphic that I snatched off the web that demonstrates the number of schools that were facing losing Title IV funding (federal grants and loans) due to high cohort default rates.  Now, there is some math that goes into these numbers, a certain amount of the schools appeal, etc.. So, the important take away here, isn’t necessarily that any one school, or another, was impacted, but the sheer number at the outset of the program (1993).


In 1990, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations conducted a series of hearings on fraud and abuse in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). Evidence provided to the Subcommittee showed that operators of some for-profit trade schools
made substantial amounts of money by taking payments from students in the form of federally guaranteed student loans while providing little or no education in return. Faced with large debts and no marketable training, these students often defaulted on their loans. Based on this and other evidence, the Subcommittee concluded that high default rates were both a warning sign of potential abuse and a common thread of actual abuse in problem schools.

In response to this information and to loan defaults that increased from $1.4 billion in fiscal year 1988 to over $2.6 billion in fiscal
year 1990, the Congress enacted the Student Loan Default Prevention Initiative Act of 1990. This legislation, together with the
Department's Default Reduction Initiative, established a process for discontinuing participation in FFELP for postsecondary institutions with default rates over certain statutory thresholds.

credit: Student Loan Defaults: Department of Education Limitations in Sanctioning Problem Schools (Letter Report, 06/19/95, GAO/HEHS-95-99).

I’ll send you over here to read this fabulous piece by newamerica.org for more reading on cohort default rates. Short story is that they worked, until they didn’t, once schools started shuffling numbers, and yeah, lying, in order to stay off the list.

And oh yes, I forgot to mention that most of schools with problems, were for-profits. I’ll say it again; it’s about money, not students.

My MyStudentData.txt reads like a who’s-who of early 1990s greed:

THE STUDENT LOAN CORPORATION (aka citibank)

The Student Loan Corporation (“SLC”) originates, holds and services federally insured student loans through a trust agreement with Citibank (New York State). SLC is an originator/holder of loans originated under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program, authorized by the Department of Education under the Federal Higher Education Act, and also holds student loans that are not insured under the Act, including CitiAssist loans. SLC’s portfolio is comprised primarily of loans originated through the FFEL Program. These loans consist of subsidized Federal Stafford loans, unsubsidized Federal Stafford loans, Parent Loans to Undergraduate Students (PLUS loans) and Federal Consolidation loans. SLC also owns a portfolio of Health Professions Education Loans that consists of guaranteed student loans in designated health professions under a federally insured loan program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

credit: https://www.sec.gov/

Then there’s another from CITIBANK ELT STUDENT LOAN CORP (aka SLC)

I also, at some point, had a loan serviced by ECMC-CA. For real, I remember thinking they were a collection agency, not a loan servicer. I’m pretty sure they ruined my credit for a good decade. Seriously.

Now I remember why it is easier to just be quiet and go with the flow.  Today has been hard.  I scoured a bunch of documents online, and I am very worried that my claim will be denied.

Sigh, its all very stressful. Eventually, you just quit trying in the face of so many unsurmountable challenges.  You cant argue with banks, people that control credit, the IRS, or the government at large.

So, I may check out for a few days.  There will be more content in a few days, but I’m overstimulated and underwhelmed right now, and that’s not a good thing.

Be well.

 

I went to ITT as a member of the lost generation. What I mean to say is that we have been written off.

I am 57 years old.

My original ITT loans were consolidated in 1991 into another loan. The provider of that loan was Citibank I think.

I assure you that Citibank did not give one rat’s ass about whether or not ITT had lied to me or if I had gotten the education I paid for. They wanted their money and the ONLY thing they ever said to me was send your money or else.

That loan was eventually rolled into another loan in 2001.

And I know I am not alone. I’ve seen the numbers regarding the amount of student loan debt in my generation. Why is that? Because there was NO oversight by the Department of Education – the same people that deny relief.

The Department of Education turned a blind eye to everything that for profit schools were doing for decades. Only doing something, when the problem became too big to avoid. Companies like ITT sold educations like they were used cars, to thousands of people during the 1980s and 1990s. And our debts are still around. Waiting to be addressed after years of being told there is nothing that can be done.

I heard that line since day 1.