Federal Student Aid (FSA) recently incorporated data through September 2019 to the FSA Data Center. The FSA Data Center provides data regarding federal financial aid programs, including data on the federal student aid portfolio, institution level data, and FFEL reports.
Among the findings:
- The outstanding federal student loan portfolio is currently $1.5 trillion, with $1.33 trillion owned by the Department of Education (ED).
- Direct Loans comprise 82% of the federal student loan portfolio. FFEL loans comprise 17% of the federal student loan portfolio, and Perkins loans are 0.5% of the federal student loan portfolio.
- Between September 2018 and September 2019, the federal student loan portfolio increased 4.9%, or by $71 billion.
- 1 million applications for federal student aid were submitted in the 2019-2020 federal financial aid application cycle, a 3.1% decrease from the cycle before.
- 8 million Direct Loan borrowers are currently enrolled in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan, up 8% from September 2018. When Direct Loan borrowers are combined with FFEL borrowers (many of whom also hold Direct Loans), 8.1 million unique borrowers are currently enrolled in an IDR plan.
- Between July and September 2019, 1.4% of borrowers actively repaying their student loans transitioned into default.
- These 260,000 new defaults account for $6.3 billion in student loans, 0.9% of the total federal student loan portfolio.
- Among ED held federal student loan borrowers, 83% of borrowers are current on their loans (actively repaying their loans or less than 31 days delinquent). Seventeen percent of borrowers are 31 days or more delinquent on their accounts, accounting for 13.5% of the federal student loan portfolio.
- Eighty-three percent of non-defaulted Direct Loan borrowers are current on their loans. Seventeen percent of non-defaulted Direct Loan borrowers are 31 days or more delinquent on their loans, accounting for 13% of the total Direct Loan portfolio.
- Eighty-three percent of non-defaulted FFEL borrowers are current on their loans. Seventeen percent of non-defaulted FFEL borrowers are 31 days or more delinquent on their loans, accounting for 20% of the total FFEL portfolio.
- Between July and September 2019, ED received 15,000 Borrower Defense to Repayment applications, bringing the total number of applications to 288,000. Thus far, 48,000 applications have discharged $535 million in federal student loans.
- The total number of discharged applications remained the same as the previous quarterly release, given the freeze on discharges due to ongoing litigation.
- Through September 2019, 110,000 borrowers have submitted 136,000 applications for federal student loan forgiveness under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, of which 125,000 applications have been processed.
- Seventy-four percent of applications have been rejected due to not meeting program requirements, such as not making the required number of payments. Twenty-four percent of applications were rejected because of missing information.
- 1,561 applications have been approved for loan forgiveness, with 1,139 borrowers having $71.9 million in federal student loans forgiven.
- 1,000 borrowers have had $43.7 million in federal student loans forgiven under the Temporary Expanded PSLF program.
