This memo addresses how the federal government’s proposal for remedying the failures of Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) only partially addresses borrower struggles with being steered into deferment before and after 2013. Servicers have routinely placed borrowers struggling with repayment in deferments—including for borrowers engaged in public service such as the Peace Corps or military service, those sick with cancer, or borrowers experiencing unemployment, among other situations. An IDR policy that does not recognize that borrowers after 2013 were regularly steered into various and prolonged deferments rather than to more beneficial income-based plans falls short..
Read the Memo: Borrower Voices on the Incomplete Promise of Relief through IDR: Deferments after 2013