A new House bill wants to change student loan forgiveness rules, especially for people who lose their jobs, and it could let jobless months count toward loan relief even if no payment is made. Around 12 million borrowers are already on income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which allow loan forgiveness after many years of payments.
Right now, if someone loses their job, they can take “unemployment deferment” and pay $0, but those months do NOT count toward forgiveness, as noted by Newsweek. This means people who are already struggling financially fall behind on their loan forgiveness timeline when they are unemployed. The new bill aims to fix this by counting those zero-payment months as valid progress toward loan forgiveness.