The resumption of debt collection on delinquent student loans by the US government has precipitated a precipitous decline in credit scores for millions of Americans; following a 90-day delinquency period, student loan servicers report defaulted accounts to major credit bureaus, an action with deleterious consequences for creditworthiness comparable to a personal bankruptcy filing, thereby significantly impeding access to, and increasing the cost of, auto loans, mortgages, credit cards, and other financial instruments. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has reported that, in the first fiscal quarter of 2025, in excess of three million student loan recipients experienced a marked degradation in their credit scores, a consequence of the unwinding of the Department of Education's forbearance measures implemented in March 2020 due to the pandemic, which suspended federal student loan repayments until their reinstatement, albeit with a one-year grace period, in 2023, followed by the Trump administration's reinstitution of collection proceedings for outstanding student loan debt in late 2024.