Millions of Americans are seeing their credit scores go down because the US government has started collecting overdue student loan payments again. If payments are missed for 90 days, student loan companies tell major credit reporting agencies, which can hurt credit ratings as much as going bankrupt. This makes it harder or more expensive to get things like car loans, home loans, and credit cards. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said that in early 2025, more than three million people with student loans saw their scores drop a lot. The US Department of Education stopped federal student loan payments in March 2020 because of the pandemic, and then started them again in 2023 with an extra year before payments were due. However, the Trump administration had already begun collecting unpaid student loans in late 2024.