Editorial policy
Every statistic on this site is tied to a named, linked source. We prefer primary documents: Federal Student Aid and studentaid.gov, the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations, court filings, lender investor presentations and SEC filings, and research from the Federal Reserve, the CFPB, the Congressional Research Service and the credit bureaus.
- Secondary: a figure taken from an aggregator or news report rather than the original publisher.
- Contested: sources disagree, or no primary source could be traced; the article says so next to the number.
- Our calculation: arithmetic we performed on sourced inputs, shown with its inputs.
- Unverified: a widely repeated claim with no traceable origin; we do not print it as fact.
Reddit, Facebook and similar threads are used only to find the questions borrowers ask. A forum post is never cited as evidence for a number.
Updates and corrections
Student loan rules changed repeatedly in 2025 and 2026. Articles carry a last-updated date and are revised when a rule, report or lender disclosure changes. Report an error to Ben-G on LinkedIn.
Disclaimer
The content on this site is general information for U.S. student loan borrowers. It is not financial, legal or tax advice, and it does not take your personal situation into account. Rules, rates and lender requirements change; before you consolidate, refinance, apply for forgiveness or choose a way out of default, confirm the details with your loan servicer, studentaid.gov or a qualified professional.
We are not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid, any loan servicer or any lender named on this site. Lender names are used to report their published figures. If a page ever contains affiliate links, it will say so at the top of that page.