From July to Oct. 2025, the national number of borrowers in default jumped from 5.33 to 8.82 million. About 9.5 million are now in default.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The pause also disrupted payment routines as household costs changed, Mayotte said. Court rulings and shifting federal policies made repayment harder to navigate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just sort of been a domino effect since then,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Why borrowers from some schools struggle more<\/p>\n
In fall 2000, Bold borrowed $2,500 to study dance at the University of North Texas. She was 18. <\/p>\n
Her divorced parents had no college degrees then and earned little, but the federal aid formula determined they should be able to cover her college costs. Despite a 3.67 high school GPA, she received no scholarships.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By her second semester, Bold had enough professional dance work that she decided to leave school without a degree. Within two years, she married, began raising her son and stopped thinking of returning to college.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her mother repaid a $1,500 loan they had cosigned. Bold ignored the remaining $1,000 loan, discarding notices unopened. The debt later disappeared from her credit report, but she doesn\u2019t know what happened to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea what I was walking into,\u201d she said, referring to those old loans.<\/p>\n
Borrowers with the smallest balances can be among those most likely to default, Mayotte said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are people that have debt and no degree, so they\u2019re worse off than when they started,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Federal borrowers who left college without a degree or certificate were nearly seven times as likely to default within six years of enrolling as those who completed their course of study, according to American Council on Education research<\/a>.<\/p>\n Differences in completion rates help explain why community colleges sometimes have higher nonpayment rates despite charging less, Mayotte said. They serve more working parents, lower-income students and older adults balancing school, work and family.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among borrowers at Texas public institutions included in AP\u2019s analysis, 19% were late by at least 90 days. TCC borrowers\u2019 rate for late payments was 27%.<\/p>\n Other Texas community colleges had comparable or higher rates: The late payment rate was 31% at Dallas College and Houston City College, 27% at Collin College and North Central Texas College, and 25% at Weatherford College.\u00a0<\/p>\n TCC CFO Pamela Anglin called the college\u2019s rate concerning but cautioned that falling behind does not necessarily lead to default. Using a separate federal measure that tracks borrowers for three years after they enter repayment, Anglin estimated that about half of those behind on payments would avoid default.<\/p>\n TCC could not immediately say how many affected borrowers earned a credential. It\u00a0 counsels students before they borrow and as they leave, Anglin said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe like to see students get through two years at TCC debt-free, but some students need the loan help to be able to attend college, especially if they are working and raising a family while attending classes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n .entry-content h3.fwr-g, h3.fwr-g { \u2018Some people just can’t get the money\u2019<\/p>\n Nearly 20 years after leaving UNT, Bold tried college again.\u00a0<\/p>\n She graduated debt-free from TCC in 2020 and transferred to UTA to study journalism. She worked at a college newspaper while raising a teenage son and a baby daughter.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her household income left her ineligible for need-based grants, Bold said. Rather than draw down savings or investments, Bold and her husband chose a low-interest federal loan for each of her four semesters, betting on the possibility of debt forgiveness<\/a>.<\/p>\n For-profit schools have the highest nonpayment rates<\/p>\n Nearly 2 in 5 borrowers who attended Texas for-profit schools were at least 90 days late, compared with about 1 in 5 borrowers from public and nonprofit private colleges in the analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n The three Tarrant County locations of the Ogle School, which teaches cosmetology, had a combined rate of about 40%. Concorde Career College\u2019s Grand Prairie campus also had a 40% rate, while The Culinary School of Fort Worth had a 36% rate.<\/p>\n Lower earnings in different lines of work offer one possible explanation for the default rate at some schools. Graduates of the three Ogle campuses and DuVall’s School of Cosmetology in Bedford earned, on average, about $3,600 to $5,300 less than the median earnings of Texas high school graduates, according to an analysis of earnings data<\/a> from Open Campus and The HEA Group.<\/p>\n Nationwide, AP identified 133 schools where more than half of recent borrowers were at least 90 days late. Nearly all were for-profit schools, and more than half were barber or beauty schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n As of July, she owed about $19,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nonpayment rates were lower at local four-year universities than at two-year colleges and for-profit schools: 20% at Texas Wesleyan University, 14% at UTA, 8% at Texas Christian University and 2% at UNT Health Fort Worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because UTA\u2019s evaluated borrower pool was much larger, its rate translated to about 5,900 people \u2014 more than at any other local schools examined.\u00a0<\/p>\n The data does not isolate the Fort Worth campuses of Tarleton State University or Texas A&M.\u00a0<\/p>\n UTA officials said many borrowers represented by the data resumed payments after the pandemic-era pause ended. Before payments restarted, the university hired an outside company to contact former students and explain the process and their repayment responsibilities.<\/p>\n About 25% of UTA\u2019s full-time undergraduates use federal student loans.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal is to equip students with the knowledge and support needed to make informed financial decisions both during their time on campus and after they graduate,\u201d the university said in a statement.<\/p>\n Bold\u2019s post-UTA jobs paid more, starting at about $20 per hour, but her degree did not bring the steady career she\u2019d expected. About a year after graduation, a newsroom where she\u2019d applied for work instituted a hiring freeze.<\/p>\n Bold later found full-time work in the artificial intelligence industry, but contracts there tend to disappear with little notice, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The mortgage, car payments, insurance and her children\u2019s needs come before student debt, she said. With her husband\u2019s pay and benefits, the couple can cover those must-haves as well as the debt.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s just some people who have money and some people who don’t,\u201d Bold said. \u201cAnd some people just can’t get the money, and it’s so unfortunate. And sometimes, if you want to go do it, you have to just borrow the money.\u201d<\/p>\n Mayotte said she has not seen repayment problems on this scale in more than two decades of her career. She expects defaults to keep rising as more than 7.5 million borrowers<\/a> must choose new repayment plans<\/a> after nearly two years without required payments.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am hearing from quite a few borrowers that just can\u2019t afford any of the options available to them,\u201d Mayotte said.<\/p>\n .entry-content h3.fwr-g, h3.fwr-g { When life takes over<\/p>\n Bold\u2019s loans were manageable \u2014 until they weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n Spine surgery in December brought more out-of-pocket costs. After recovering, she returned to her remote position at Meta but in January, Bold was selected for a jury in a felony sexual assault trial expected to last a week. It lasted a month.<\/p>\n Bold suffered a stroke during the trial\u2019s fourth week that she attributed to daily exposure to graphic evidence and her untreated high blood pressure.\u00a0<\/p>\n Months of recovery kept her from working as hospital bills piled up, atop the mortgage, car payments and other expenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n Without her husband\u2019s paycheck, Bold said, she would have returned to ignoring notices \u2014 just as she did two decades ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI would never log in again. I would never answer their calls. I would let it default, and I would say, ‘There’s so much else in my life right now that I care about,\u2019\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n .entry-content h3.fwr-g, h3.fwr-g { What happens after default<\/p>\n Making student loans a low priority can make the debt more expensive, Mayotte said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Default makes the full unpaid balance immediately due, damages credit and blocks access to more federal aid. The government can withhold tax refunds and some Social Security benefits or garnish up to 15% of disposable pay unless stopped by a court order, Mayotte said.<\/p>\n \u201cIgnoring it is not going to make it go away,\u201d Mayotte said. \u201cIgnoring it\u2019s going to make it worse.\u201d<\/p>\n As of July, the Federal Student Aid agency said the government had not resumed<\/a> collecting default loans by withholding federal tax refunds, other benefits and portions of borrowers\u2019 wages.\u00a0<\/p>\n Schools can offer free repayment webinars or direct borrowers to federal tools for lowering payments, Mayotte said.<\/p>\n While more repayment options may make one college loan bill more manageable, they can\u2019t keep the rest of life from arriving.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bold still wants to go back to work, though perhaps in an industry other than AI. Her husband earns enough to keep the household finances steady, and she intends to use that college degree she went back for.\u00a0<\/p>\n The fortunate life the Bolds built comes with plenty of chosen expenses: a home, two cars or their daughter\u2019s dance classes. Other expenses arrived uninvited: medical bills from surgeries and Bold\u2019s stroke, which required hospitalization to stabilize her condition and restore her vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fortunate or not, Bold plans to continue to make payments on the $240 in student loan bills that arrive each month.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI’m just really fortunate,\u201d she said. \u201cIn a lot of ways, I’m not fortunate because of things that happen outside of my control. But I am fortunate because of my partner.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This story was reported in collaboration with The Associated Press through its Localize It initiative, which provides datasets, reporting and story ideas for local newsrooms.<\/p>\n Disclosure: Reporter Dang Le previously worked with Jill Bold at the student publications at Tarrant County College and the University of Texas at Arlington.<\/p>\n Dang Le is the higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at dang.le@fortworthreport.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Fort Worth Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.<\/p>\n The Report\u2019s higher education coverage is supported in part by major higher education institutions in Tarrant County, including Tarleton State University, Tarrant County College, Texas A&M-Fort Worth, Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, the University of Texas at Arlington and UNT Health Fort Worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Texas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785453016_109_full.png\")
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