Student Debt Cancellation Raised Credit Scores 17 Points: Study

orrowers whose federal student loans were canceled between 2021 and 2024 saw their credit scores climb an average of 17 points, according to a new paper on student debt cancellation (PDF File) released October 26, 2026. Their homeownership rate rose 1.2 percentage points over the four years after cancellation. Most of the relief the study captures came through Public Service Loan Forgiveness and the IDR account adjustment, two programs behind much of the $183.6 billion approved under President Biden.

The study was led by Eduard Nilaj of The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers, with Marshall Steinbaum of the University of Utah and five co-authors. It uses the University of California Consumer Credit Panel, a 2% nationally representative sample of U.S. credit files.

The authors compare more than 28,000 borrowers whose loans were canceled against about 117,000 borrowers who still carried student loan debt and got no cancellation.