Student Loan COVID Relief

[Fadwa Hilili]

Does anyone have experience with how the COVID Student Loan relief programs have affected your credit / ability to qualify for a loan?

• If you opted to go into "forbearance" and stop making payments:
  1. How does it appear on your credit report? Does it show that you owe a minimum payment or has it dropped your min payment to 0 and therefore lowered your D/I ratio?
  2. Have lenders raised any concerns that your account is not in "repayment" even though Navient claims they are not reporting anything negative to the credit bureaus?
• If you did not opt to go into forbearance and you are continuing to pay, again how is it appearing on your credit report? Your normal min payment less interest?
  

Bkgd: At the beginning of the pandemic when this relief was first put into place the loans stopped accruing interest so your rate is now effectively 0% and you had the option to go into forbearance without the usual consequences (this would normally be a dirty word). 

The federal student loan COVID flexibilities as they are calling them have been extended through at least September 2021.

Appreciate any insight on this