These 30 members of Congress are about to resume student-loan payments in October with millions of other federal borrowers

11:59 AM
From left to right: Reps. Russell Fry, Summer Lee, Kevin Kiley, and Jamaal Bowman are among the lawmakers who still owe thousands in student loan debt.
From left to right: Reps. Russell Fry, Summer Lee, Kevin Kiley, and Jamaal Bowman are among the lawmakers who still owe thousands in student loan debt.

Sean Rayford/Getty Images; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images; Scott Strazzante/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

  • Monthly student loan payments are set to resume in October.
  • Lawmakers from both parties are among the millions who've borrowed money for higher education.
  • At least 30 members of Congress have disclosed owing thousands of dollars in loans.

After an over three-year pause, federal student-loan payments are about to resume for millions of borrowers. And dozens of lawmakers in both parties will be footing another monthly bill right alongside them.

Former President Donald Trump first implemented the student-loan payment pause in March 2020 to give borrowers financial relief during the pandemic, and President Joe Biden has since extended that pause multiple times. But that relief is about to end — the bill to raise the debt ceiling that Biden signed into law at the beginning June codified the end of the student-loan payment pause, meaning the president can not issue a further extension in connection with COVID-19.

The Education Department confirmed the implications of the debt ceiling bill in June, with a spokesperson saying at the time that "student loan interest will resume starting on September 1, 2023, and payments will be due starting in October. We will notify borrowers well before payments restart."

"In spite of our opponents' best efforts to sabotage our work to support student borrowers, we are fully committed to helping borrowers successfully navigate the return to repayment with the pandemic now behind us," the spokesperson added.

That means that federal borrowers will soon be responsible for an additional monthly bill — and it comes after the Supreme Court struck down Biden's broad plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers.

Members of Congress are required to disclose any debts they owe worth more than $10,000 in their annual finance disclosure. Insider analyzed the most recently filed disclosures for all House members under the age of 50, and identified at least 30 lawmakers — 20 Democrats and 10 Republicans — who are set to start making student loan payments again.

Some members of Congress hold six-figure debt loads, including Democratic Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania.

"Just saw what my total monthly student loan payment is going to be after the pause ends... It's higher than my mortgage, but no big deal!" Lee wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

The disclosures also reveal that most of the lawmakers who still owe student loan debt are people of color, including 12 women of color.

Previous data has reflected the disproportionate student debt burden on Black borrowers — for example, a US Census Bureau report from 2021 found that Black borrowers with no degrees were just as likely as white borrowers with advanced degrees to have student debt.

To ease the transition back into repayment, the Education Department announced a 12-month "on-ramp" period once payments resume during which borrowers who miss payments will not be reported to credit agencies, but interest will still accrue during that time. Borrowers can also apply for the SAVE Plan, a new income-driven repayment plan that will lower monthly payments. 

Here are the members of Congress who still owe at least $10,000 in student loan debt:

Owe more than $200,000

Owe more than $100,000

Owe more than $50,000

Owe more than $15,000

Owe between $10,000 and $15,000

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