Sometimes, life gets in the way of making your student loan payments. Maybe you have faced an unexpected job loss that shrinks down your budget to the bare essentials. Or perhaps you are going back to school and need some way to put payments on pause while your income is, too.

There are ways to do exactly that — and lately, more and more Americans are taking advantage of options to press pause on the years-long venture that is paying off student loans . "Around 10.3 million borrowers were enrolled in a payment pause known as a forbearance in the third quarter of 2025, up from around 2.9 million during the same time period in 2024," said CNBC , citing data analyzed by higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. Meanwhile, "another 3.4 million federal student loan borrowers had deferre

See Full Page