SAN ANTONIO – Patricia Bolin said her decision to go to college wasn’t easy, but not because she didn’t know what she wanted to study.
“I had to do what I had to do,” Bolin said. “I wanted to go to school and make a better life for myself.”
Bolin said her only option to go to school was to take on student loans. Nearly a decade later, Bolin said the distant memories of college come with more than $30,000 in student loan debt.
Bolin is just one of more than 28 million American borrowers who are back on the hook for paying off their student loans. As of this month, the pause on federal student loan repayment was lifted.
It comes after a payment pause of over three years that started during the Trump administration with the COVID-19 pandemic.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan. Since then, interest started accruing on Sept. 1.
Christina Randell is the president of My Education Solutions, a student loan management firm. She said her phones haven’t stopped ringing since that decision.
“It is pretty confusing, especially when websites are going up and down, and information is pretty spotty,” Randell said. “There’s still a lot of movement happening at the servicer level, but it is getting better, and they’re going to get closer. We’re only a couple of days in.”
Randell recommended the best way to get started is to log into the federal student aid portal. She said it’s crucial to find out who a person’s servicer is and log in to that servicer’s portal.
Randell said that an account or any documents kept from the initial commitment should give access to a person’s student loan balance, monthly payment amount and interest rate. She said payment plans should be personalized based on every borrower’s position.
For more information on repaying student loans, visit the facts page on StudentAid.gov.