The US government has started collecting student loan payments again, which has caused the credit scores of millions of Americans to go down. If people do not pay their student loans for 90 days, the loan companies tell credit bureaus, and this 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 reported that in early 2025, more than three million student loan borrowers saw their scores drop a lot. The US Department of Education stopped federal student loan payments in March 2020 because of the pandemic, and they started again in 2023 with a one-year grace period. However, the Trump administration began collecting unpaid student loans again in late 2024.