The CARES Act has some substantial effects for student loan borrowers with federal loan balances. Not only does it decrease interest rates to 0% and automatically stop payments until September 30th, it also allows borrowers to get money back on their student loan payments. That's right, with the CARES Act, you can actually get money back on your student loan payments if you made a payment after March 13th. For instance, if you have auto-pay set up through your student loan servicer, and your payment date is sometime between the 13th and the 27th of the month, you likely made a payment that you can have refunded.
How do you go about getting money back from your student loan payment? Simple. Just call up your loan servicer and ask. I just got off the phone with Great Lakes Educational Loan Services and was able to get over $600 back. I have 3 different loans with them, so they simply started the process to refund me the payments from each balance right back into my checking account. I even had the payment refunded for a loan that I plan to pay off this year. The interest rate is temporarily set at 0%, and the economy is still in a tough spot, so I'd rather have that money in my pocket now, where I can leverage it to get a better return than 0%.
Here's the guidance from the department of education on getting your student loan payments refunded. It's definitely worth a look, and if your planning on having your loans forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or otherwise, it's a no-brainer, since this temporary forbearance still counts towards your forgiveness period.
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| Federal Student Aid and the Coronavirus |
If you've ever wanted to get some money back from your student loan payments, now's the chance through the CARES Act stimulus. I hope the economy recovers quickly, but I'm glad that the federal government is also starting to realize the impact they have on the larger economy.