(GENERAL-22-71) Federal Student Aid Posts Quarterly Portfolio Reports to FSA Data Center

Author
Federal Student Aid
Electronic Announcement ID
GENERAL-22-71
Subject
Federal Student Aid Posts Quarterly Portfolio Reports to FSA Data Center

Today, Federal Student Aid (FSA) released new quarterly portfolio reports on its FSA Data Center website with key data and other information about the American student aid programs from June 30, 2022.

These reports reflect the novel flexibilities applied to borrower accounts as prescribed in the CARES Act and extended by executive actions. As a result, payments are paused, and interest is waived on all U.S. Department of Education (ED)-held student loans. Default collections have also stopped for both FFEL and DL.

Additionally, this release includes annual updates to the Pell and Campus-Based Program data books.

FSA posts reports to its FSA Data Center in support of open government initiatives to help ensure consistency, increase transparency, and establish self-service opportunities for stakeholders.

Outstanding Loan Portfolio Impact

As of June 30, 2022, approximately 43 million unduplicated student loan recipients have about $1.62 trillion in outstanding loans. This represents an increase of $26 billion in the outstanding loan balance since last year, and no change in the number of student loan recipients.

Although there have been modest increases in Direct Loan balances, the balances of FFEL loans have been declining more rapidly, in part due to the temporary limited PSLF Waiver, which encourages FFELP borrowers to consolidate into Direct Loan to apply for credits for past public service that ordinarily would not count toward PSLF.

As a result of these shifts, ED now directly manages 93 percent (or $1480 billion) of the total federal loan portfolio.  The remaining seven percent includes school-held Perkins Loans, lender-held FFELP loans, and the FFELP loans held by guaranty agencies.

Shift in Loan Statuses

As a result of special COVID-19 flexibilities for federal student loans, the number of recipients in repayment status has fallen sharply over the last two years. More than 25 million Direct Loan (DL) recipients, with over $1 trillion in outstanding loans, are in forbearance status, and over 99% of these balances are in the special CARES Act forbearance. When considering the entire ED-serviced portfolio, including ED-owned FFEL, the number of borrowers in forbearance increases to almost 28 million. An additional 8 million borrowers are in other non-payment statuses, such as in-school, grace, or in-school deferments. 

In fact, only about 430,000 recipients have opted out of the payment pause and thus were in an active repayment status as of June 30, 2022, compared to 18.1 million recipients in March 2020, shortly after the CARES Act became law. Notably, some borrowers in forbearance choose to make voluntary payments, even though they are not required to do so.

Income-Driven Repayment Enrollment

Despite the repayment pause affecting most borrowers, enrollment in income-driven repayment (IDR) plans has slightly increased during the COVID-19 emergency. As of June 2022, almost 8.4 million DL recipients were enrolled in IDR plans, up about 1% from June 2021. Incorporating ED-held FFEL recipients, 8.7 million unique recipients are enrolled in IDR plans as of June 2022, compared to 8.6 million unique recipients one year ago.

Conversely, the number of borrowers without repayment plans has grown significantly during the COVID-19 emergency because of borrowers being transitioned directly into forbearance immediately upon entering repayment.  As of June 2022, approximately 6.8 million recipients have at least one loan without a repayment plan.

Impact on Direct Loan Defaults

With almost all non-defaulted federal student loan borrowers now in forbearance, no new DL borrowers entered default during the past two years. In fact, the number of cumulative DL borrowers in default continues to decrease, now approximately 4.8 million borrowers compared to 5.2 million borrowers one year ago.  The number of defaulted borrowers in the FFEL Program has also decreased, now at 3.4 million borrowers compared to 3.5 million one year ago. Note that the DL and the FFEL total defaults should not be summed because many borrowers have loans in both programs.

Appendix: Key Items to Note While Reviewing These Reports

To accurately interpret the data, please note the following items:

  • In the portfolio reports, recipient counts are based at the loan level. For that reason, recipients may be counted multiple times across varying loan statuses. For example, a recipient with one loan in deferment and one loan in forbearance would be counted once in each category. A recipient with two loans in the same status would be counted once in that category.

  • In the portfolio reports by servicer, please note the differences in portfolio composition between the Title IV Additional Servicers (TIVAS) and the Not-For-Profit Servicers (NFPs). The NFP portfolio was originally made up of accounts received from the Direct Loan Servicing Center beginning in 2011. These loans already were in repayment and current at the time they were transferred. As a result, the loans were more stable and mature than the TIVAS portfolios. In addition to new accounts, the TIVAS service FFEL Program loans purchased through the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act and loans of all statuses received from the Direct Loan Servicing Center beginning in 2011. The NFPs first started receiving new borrowers in January 2015.

  • The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 required ED to allocate new student loan borrower accounts to eligible student loan servicers based on their performance compared to all loan servicers, using established common metrics and based on the capacity of each servicer to process new and existing accounts no later than March 1, 2016. Prior to passage of the Act, ED established common performance metrics across all servicing contracts but maintained separate allocation pools to reflect differences in portfolio composition. As a result, beginning on March 1, 2016, new allocation percentages were based on performance under the established common metrics compared across all loan servicers. ED has since developed a revised methodology, which it continues to implement, that better reflects differences across servicer portfolios while maintaining the established common metrics.

The FSA Data Center was launched in 2009 to increase government transparency by posting information useful to businesses, postsecondary institutions, the media, and individuals.