Financial Intel Monthly

Every year, the College Board releases new college cost data and trends in its annual report. The figures published are average cost figures based on a survey of approximately 4,000 colleges across the country.

Over the past 20 years, the average price for tuition, fees, and room and board has increased 38% at public colleges and 29% at private colleges over and above increases in the Consumer Price Index, straining the budgets of many families and leading to widespread student debt.

Here are cost highlights for the 2023–2024 year.

This past June, the Supreme Court struck down President Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for qualified borrowers. As a result, millions of student loan borrowers are scheduled to start paying back their loans in October after a three-and-a-half-year reprieve.

Three important developments occurred recently in the world of federal student loans: the U.S. Supreme Court blocked an executive order offering loan cancellation to certain borrowers; Congress set an expiration date for the payment moratorium that has been in effect since March 2020; and new student loan interest rates have been set for the 2023–2024 school year. Here are the details.

In December 2022, Congress passed the SECURE 2.0 Act. It introduced two new rules relating to 529 plans and student debt that will take effect in 2024.

The first provision allows for tax- and penalty-free rollovers from a 529 plan to a Roth IRA. The second provision allows student loan payments made by employees to qualify for employer retirement matching contributions. The overall goal is to help young adults start saving for retirement.

The Biden administration has announced another extension for repayment of federal student loans to an unspecified date in 2023 due to legal challenges that have blocked implementation of the student loan debt relief program. The previous payment moratorium was set to expire on December 31, 2022.

Under the new extension, student loan payments will resume 60 days after the student loan debt relief program is implemented or the lawsuits are resolved. If the courts have not resolved the issue by June 30, 2023, payments will start 60 days after that.¹

On August 24, 2022, just a few days before federal student loan repayment was set to resume, President Biden announced a plan for additional student loan debt relief.

Federal student loan repayment was originally halted in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic. The new plan extends the payment moratorium through the end of the year, offers partial debt cancellation, and includes proposed updates to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and a new income-based repayment plan.

As Fortune 500 employees, you or many in your area may have anticipated beginning student loan payments (either for yourself or your offspring) in the upcoming month. The U.S. Department of Education extended the suspension of federal student loan payments to January 31, 2022, on August 6, 2021. On September 30, 2021, the payment moratorium presently in effect for millions of federal student loan borrowers was scheduled to expire.

After two years of decreases, interest rates on federal student loans are set to increase almost a full percentage point for the 2021-2022 school year.1 The interest rates on federal student loans are reset each year after the May auction of the 10-year Treasury note.

The rates apply to new federal student loans issued on or after July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022. The interest rate is fixed for the life of the loan.