The CARES Act was written with the recognition that the COVID-19 epidemic has impaired the ability of individuals to make payments on their student loan at this time, but it overlooks the future harm that will be experienced by current students.

For each student loan that exists, public or private, there is a grace period of 6 months during which time payments do not have to be made. This grace period automatically resets if the student is enrolled in classes at least half time during those 6 months. If the grace period expires, payments must begin and unpaid interest will capitalize adding to the loan's principal.

Due to schools being closed many students are approaching the expiration of their student loan grace period. While the CARES Act will defer those payments until September 30th, what about the students who intended to continue classes in the Autumn? They will be forced to begin making payments while attending classes due entirely to the epidemic.

For school programs that were able to continue in an online form through the end of the Spring semester they will need to take autumn classes or their payments will begin in November of 2020, but if their school does not offer online classes or if their program cannot be offered in an online format due to the nature of the classes they will not have the ability to reset their grace period and as a result undue financial hardship will be placed on these students.

Worse, if any individuals are still sick with COVID-19 when autumn semester classes begin they will have a financial incentive to enroll in classes anyway potentially reigniting the epidemic if it has mostly passed by then.

Our government has the ability to fix this, but our representatives do not appear to be aware that this is even a problem. I ask that a law be passed which clearly states the following:

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TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF STUDENT LOAN GRACE PERIOD

(a) General - All students with any active student loan grace period, public or private, shall be treated as if they are enrolled in eligible courses full time for the purpose of determining the status of any student loan grace period regardless of if they are enrolled or not for 6 months.

(b) Retroactive - Any student loan grace period that was active January 20th 2020 (the date the epidemic started) or later shall be extended under subsection (a) even if the grace period has expired prior to the date that this law was passed.

(c) Extension - The Secretary may extend the period described under subsection (a) for an additional 6 months.