Monday, Sept. 30, is an important day for people with federal student loans. It’s the last day for anyone who is in default to apply for a temporary relief program to get out of default, and back into good standing.

It also marks the end of the so-called “on ramp” back to student loan repayment. The pandemic-era payment pause ended last October, and the Biden administration gave borrowers a one-year grace period where it wouldn’t hurt them if they didn’t make payments.

But now that grace period is over too. 

For the last four-and-a-half years, the student loan system has been in constant flux. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the Trump administration paused payments and stopped interest from accruing. Then, the Biden administration kept extending that pause.

When payments finally resumed last fall, Betsy Mayotte at the nonprofit Institute of Student Loan Advisors, said there was still this period where, if they fell behind “borrowers wouldn’t be reported as delinquent on their credit reports.”

The idea was that both borrowers and loan servicers needed time to get back in the swing of things.

“No system in the world, I don’t care what your product is, is set up for every single one of their customers all re-entering repayment at exactly the same time,” Mayotte said.

Especially not one with nearly 43 million customers — that’s how many people have student loans, said Jane Fox, chair of the Legal Aid attorneys’ union UAW local 2325 in New York City.

“Student loan debt is the second highest household debt in the United States. It’s second only to mortgage debt,” she said.

And the grace period is ending at a time of peak uncertainty, because of legal challenges from Republican-led states.

A new, affordable income-based repayment plan is on hold and servicers aren’t processing applications for other income-driven repayment programs either.

“One of the challenges with the student loan system is a lot of complexity that’s unclear for borrowers,” said Jason Cohn at the Urban Institute. He said it can be hard to keep up, even when you’re paying close attention. And the reality is, most people aren’t.

“There’s research that suggests most borrowers don’t know income-driven repayment even exists,” he said.

Research also shows that people who struggle most with repayment are people of color and those who took out student loans but did not get a degree.