Why Millions of Student Borrowers Could See a Big Drop in Their Credit Scores

WSJ Your Money Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Business News

3.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More than 9 million student-loan borrowers could see a decline in their credit scores in the first half of the year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Wall Street Journal reporter Oyin Adedoyin joins host Ariana Aspuru to discuss what you should do if you are at risk. Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello Blue Skies. Hello moving onwards and upwards. Hello, taking control of your money. Say hello to tax-free investing. Open a Stocks and Shares ICER and act by the 5th of April to get 100 to 3,000 pounds cashback. Cargreaves lands down. Hello Life. Register and add or transfer 10,000 pounds plus. You may get back less than you invest. And tax benefits vary. For terms and conditions, see hl.com.uk.
0:28.6	U.K. 4.S.A.
0:30.5	Hey, your money briefing listeners. This is Adiana Aspuru. Here at YMB, we're all about bringing you important personal finance and career news.
0:40.1	We're working on making some changes to the show, and we want to hear from you.
0:44.8	Our question today is, what kinds of life issues related to money do you want to hear more about?
0:51.6	If you're listening on Spotify, look for our poll under the episode
0:55.0	description. Or you can send us an email to YMB at WSJ.com. That's YMB at WSJ.com. Now onto the show.
1:13.7	Here's your money briefing for Wednesday, April 2nd.
1:16.2	I'm Mariana Aspudu for the Wall Street Journal.
1:21.9	Now that pandemic era protections are over,
1:27.2	more than 9 million student loan borrowers could see their credit scores tank.
1:33.6	We reported that about 43% of borrowers who owe payments on federal student loans hadn't resumed making them. And that was according to an analysis of government data by Advantage
1:38.0	score, a credit score provider. So that's millions of people who are either seeing that their credit scores are dropping pretty dramatically or on track to see those drops in the coming months.
1:49.5	We'll talk with Wall Street Journal reporter Oyen-Addoin about what borrowers need to know if they're at risk.
1:56.3	That's after the break.
2:13.7	The pause on student loan payments helped borrowers credit scores for years.
2:15.0	But that's over.
2:16.8	And they're now in jeopardy. Walsh Street Journal reporter, Oyan-Adedoyan,
2:19.5	joins me to talk about it. Oyan, you reported that student loan delinquency rates have hit a new high.
2:26.6	What exactly is driving this search? It's a host of things. So for student loan borrowers,
2:31.4	you know, many of them haven't had to pay for their student loans in years.
2:36.7	First, a pandemic hit, which caused there to be a pause on student loan repayments.
	...

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