Back
Holding colleges accountable for unacceptably high default rates through the cohort default rate (CDR) has successfully driven down student loan defaults. However, evasion of CDR accountability through abuse of forbearance options – which temporarily suspend payments but may serve to delay rather than prevent defaults – harms borrowers and undermines the meaningfulness of the CDR metric. A new report offers recommendations to help policymakers protect the federal cohort default rate from “forbearance abuse.”