The National Default Rate Briefing for FY 2021 official cohort default rates is attached. The briefing is provided in Portable Document Format (PDF) which requires 4.0 or greater of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.
The FY 2021 default rates were calculated using the cohort of student loan borrowers who entered repayment on their William D. Ford Federal Direct Loans or Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL) between Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021, and who defaulted between Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2023.
As expected, FY 2021 cohort default rates are impacted by the pause on federal student loan payments that began March 13, 2020, and ended on Sept. 30, 2023. During the pause, borrowers with ED-held student loans were not required to make any payments, and no borrowers with ED-held loans entered default. Fewer than 200 borrowers with non-ED-held FFEL loans entered default because those loans were not eligible for the payment pause.
Some schools have a small number of student loan borrowers entering repayment. At other schools, only a small portion of the student body takes out student loans. In such cases, the cohort default rate should be interpreted with caution.
Contact Information
If you have questions about the briefing, email fsa.schools.default.management@ed.gov or call the Cohort Default Rates Group at 202-377-4259.
Attachments
The Department of Education strives to make all content accessible to everyone. While this document does not currently meet the standards of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, Federal Student Aid is working to create an accessible version. If you need access to this document before the accessible version is available, please contact the Information Technology Accessibility Program Help Desk at ITAPSupport@ed.gov to help facilitate.
Briefing on FY 2021 Official National Default Rates in PDF Format, 2 Pages, 197KB