Justin Thurmond and his family in Alma, Ark., will keep their thermostat set at a balmy 78 degrees this summer to save money. They're ending their weekly meals out, juggling streaming services and cutting back on groceries and other spending.
It's still not enough to offset the $460 he'll need each month to pay down $42,000 in student loans come Oct. 1. That is when Thurmond and 43.6 million other borrowers will have to resume monthly payments on an estimated $1.6 trillion in college debt, ending a three-year pause.
The end of the pandemic-era grace period is another pressure point for American households already getting pinched by inflation, high interest rates and record credit card debt. Economists say it could further cool consumer spending — long a bright spot for the U.S. economy — by redirecting billions of dollars to monthly loan payments.
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