With the education department, what can be borrowers on a student loan – San Bernardino Sun.

So far, you do not need to make dramatic changes to your student loans. (Getty Images)

By Eliza Haverstok, Nerdwallet

President Donald Trump swore to dismantle the US Department of Education, which heads the federal financial assistance to students. Members of the Ministry of Government of Elon Musk (Doge) have been reported to have access to financial assistance data containing the personal information of millions of students enrolled in the federal student assistance program.

These developments may sound the alarm for a student loan borrowers. But so far you do not need to make dramatic changes to your student loans.

“We have to get involved in the process that is currently existing … We have no guidance to suggest that we have to do things in different ways,” says Will del Pilar, Senior Vice President at Edtrust, intercession and research organization that works that works In disassembling racial and economic barriers in the American education system.

The spokesman for the education department, Madison Biederman, declined to comment on whether Musk and Dog had gained access to a set of financial aid data, as reported by The Washington Post. She is directing Nerdwallet Until an executive order on January 20, which allows Doge teams to install in federal agencies within 30 days.

Borrowers cannot control what President Trump is trying to do to student loans or the education department. But you can take these steps now to protect yourself.

Download your loan information

Take a few minutes to screen or download each part of the information from your Studentaid.gov account. Having a paper trace of your payments and loan status may protect you if there are problems with the Website of the Education Division or if your service makes an error.

“We have seen some data disappear from different [government] Sites and entire web pages no longer exist, “says del Pilar. In the last week, more than 8,000 government pages have been downloaded as per The New York TimesS

For borrowers, this is “always good practice anyway,” says Daniel Zibel, Chief Advisor and Co -Founder of Student Defense, Policy Research Group, Judicial Disputes and Advocacy that aims to protect students and promote access to higher education S “Just play it safely and make sure they have the documentation they may need along the way …. There really is no disadvantage to enter and just make sure you have archived all your information from the department. “

Take screens for everything that checks your previous payments, including the number of eligible payments made for forgiveness for a public forgiveness service (PSLF) or forgiveness managed by income (IDR), says del Pilar. Print these records if possible. You can use them to file a student loan complaint if there are problems that your service fails to solve.

Borrowers must also download their full repayment history. To do this, click “My Help” at the bottom of your Studentaid.gov control panel. Then click the blue “Download My Help” button in the upper right corner.

Here’s what else you have to download:

• If you are enrolled in IDR plan. A new tracking of the number of payments will appear on the right side of your board in a module called “IDR end of payment period”. From here, click “View IDR Progress” for more details.
• If you are currently not enrolled in IDR plan. Click the “View Details” button in the middle of the dashboard. This will take you to a loan page page. On the right, you will see a module marked as “you are interested in plans for IDR?” Click “Learn More” and scroll down. You will see tracking modules explaining how many qualification payments you have made so far and how many payments you will leave under different IDR plans.
• If you are on your way to PSLF. A screenshot of any information about your Payment History progress to forgiveness through the Government tool for PSLF help.

“Just as a consumer of any type of financial product, you must be as informed as much as possible. Keeping your own records and cross-rendering that with what you can find on the online portal through your service is probably your best bet, “says Beth Akers, a senior associate focused on higher education at the American Institute for Enterprises, Center-Center Correct Brain Trust.

“This is not necessarily because I believe there is some reason to think that this intervention that is happening now will damage any data, and more recently, just because I think it is a good practice at any time,” says She.

Change your passwords and keep track of your loan

The nature of the reports of access to financial assistance sets remains unclear, but you can still be cautious.