An Associated Press analysis found that Mississippi had the nation’s highest student loan default rate at 28.3%.
Since the pandemic pause ended, the number of borrowers living in Mississippi who are more than 360 days delinquent has grown by 57,000, bringing the total to 129,000.
Among schools in Mississippi, about 33,900 borrowers—about 21%—were late on payments.
The number of borrowers across the United States with defaulted student loans jumped by more than 4.2 million from April 2025 to March 2026.
Many of the states with the highest concentrations of defaulted borrowers are in the South, an AP analysis found. Others near the top include Louisiana, Alabama, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas.
Default Numbers Surge After Pandemic Pause Ends
The surge includes many who went off track in 2024, when loan payments resumed after a pandemic-era freeze.
The U.S. Education Department allowed borrowers to suspend federal student loan payments during the economic tumult of the pandemic. Though payments technically started coming due again in 2023, the Biden administration provided a one-year buffer period that ended in the fall of 2024.
Loans couldn’t enter default during this time, and federal programs designed to help delinquent borrowers and debt forgiveness initiatives brought millions out of default.
Starting in June 2025, with the pause having ended nine months prior, borrowers began defaulting again for the first time since the pandemic.
Since then, data from the Office of Federal Student Aid has shown that the number of borrowers in default has increased from 5.3 million to around 9.5 million. Out of $1.7 trillion in federally backed student loans nationwide, $233.3 billion is in default.
Hundreds of thousands more are months behind on payments, and another surge in defaults could be on the way. Millions of borrowers are facing higher monthly payments as the Trump administration dismantles its most affordable income-driven repayment option, the SAVE plan, one of several changes the Education Department says are intended to simplify a fragmented system.
Starting this month, new borrowers must choose between one standard repayment plan and one income-driven option, rather than several options. The Education Department has described the changes as a simplification of a “fragmented and confusing” system.
Taking Out Student Loans Was All Too Easy; Repaying Them Is Hard
Students who attended for-profit colleges struggle more than others to pay back their loans. Data released from the Office of Federal Student Aid to help schools understand and identify default risks showed that 33% of those borrowers were 90 days or more behind on their student loan payments, a rate more than double that of borrowers who attended public schools.
Rust College, Mississippi’s oldest HBCU and second-oldest private college in the state, had the highest nonpayment rate among Mississippi institutions, ranking among the highest in the country at 43%.
The FSA argues that a high nonpayment rate represents a “serious risk” of developing a high default rate.
About 28,800 borrowers who attended public schools in Mississippi—22%—were late on payments. East Mississippi Community College had the highest nonpayment rate at 37%. Hinds Community College and Tougaloo College had a 36% nonpayment rate.
Borrowers enter default after missing payments for nine months, and the consequences can upend lives. It hurts credit ratings and can lead to the debt being sent to collections.
“I am seeing despair and outrage and despondency and just a very wide mix of pretty extreme emotions, the likes of which I have not seen before,” said Alan Collinge, the founder of Student Loan Justice and the author of “The Student Loan Scam.”
The federal government can garnish wages and Social Security payments from borrowers in default, but in January, the Trump administration walked back plans to begin collections on their loans.
Despair is on the rise, advocates say.
“Folks are struggling to make ends meet and cover all the rising costs of everything else. The growing student loan bills are making things worse and folks are falling behind,” said Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director for the advocacy group Protect Borrowers.
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Associated Press reporter Adriana Morga contributed to this report.
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