Millions of Americans borrowed money from the federal government to go to college.

Almost 43 million of them are still paying that money back.

It's a hard number to conceptualize, right?

But the way I think about it is that if you don't have student loans yourself,

then you probably know somebody who have student loans yourself, then you probably

know somebody who has student loans.

Our colleague Oyan-Eddoin covers personal finance.

And for the past five years, she says paying those federal student loans felt more or less

optional.

The Biden administration will extend the pandemic error freeze on those loan payments through August.

We're coming off with the piggyback of the pandemic, right? And that was a period where student loans virtually didn't exist.

There were a lot of starts and stops when it came to student loan payments. You know, a lot of people were put in forbearance. A lot of people

were put on pause. And so it seemed like we were in this very different, almost twilight zone

effect when it came to the world. Like a state of suspension. Yes, exactly. We were all kind of

like, you know, fumbling about in outer space, not sure what the rules were. And now it seems like we're

back on Earth. We're back in reality. That's because last month, the Department of Education

made an announcement. Federal student loans are officially being referred to collections again.

Millions of people now have to come up with the money or lose more of it.

This is part of a broader effort to roll back loan forgiveness policies and dismantle the department.

After years of leniency, the government is taking a different approach.

So if you were to sum up the government's message right now to borrowers, that message is...

It's pay up or reap the consequences.

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