Exit counseling aims to soften that blow and give students time to prepare for what will happen after the six-month grace period, while encouraging them to get a head start with payments if they can. That's why Januszkiewicz thinks it's an important requirement (even if it happens to fall in the midst of graduation party planning and job hunting).

It would be hard to blame student loan borrowers for stumbling into 2026 like dazed freshmen on their first day on campus. A dizzying parade of changes has upended the federal student loan landscape over the past half-decade, beginning with the pandemic ...

Federal student loans are about to go through some significant changes, and several key dates are coming up in the next few weeks. Here's a breakdown.