Perkins Loans Services

Welcome to the Perkins Loan Program home page (formerly National Direct Student Loan - NDSL). If you need assistance with finding information or have suggestions for improving our services, please contact us.

President Biden Announces Student Loan Relief

The Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients, and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients for borrowers with loans held by the Department of Education. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). No high-income individual or high-income household – in the top 5% of incomes – will benefit from this action. To ensure a smooth transition to repayment and prevent unnecessary defaults, the pause on federal student loan repayment will be extended one final time through December 31, 2022. Borrowers should expect to resume payment in January 2023.

On September 29, 2022, the Biden Administration updated the guidance for the Student Debt Relief program. Borrowers with federal student loans not held by ED cannot obtain one-time debt relief by consolidating those loans into Direct Loans. Borrowers with FFEL Program loans and Perkins Loans not held by ED who have applied to consolidate into the Direct Loan program prior to September 29, 2022 are eligible for a one-time debt relief through the Direct Loan program.

If you would like more information about loan consolidation, or to start the loan consolidation process, please visit StudentAid.gov.

COVID-19: Important Information about the Student Loan Interest Freeze

The student loan interest freeze implemented by the President of the United States only applies to loans that are directly held by the Department of Education. If you make your loan payments to UT-Austin, your loan is NOT directly held by the Department of Education. Therefore, an interest freeze and an automatic forbearance will not be applied to your student loan(s). You are required to continue making your student loan payments as scheduled.

If you are experiencing financial hardship, you may be eligible for an Economic Hardship Deferment, Unemployment Deferment or Forbearance for your Perkins loan(s) depending on your circumstance. Please contact Loan Services for further details at: perkins@austin.utexas.edu.

If you would like to take advantage of the loan interest freeze benefit and currently have a Federal Perkins loan serviced by the University of Texas at Austin, you may consolidate your Federal Perkins Loan into a Direct Consolidation Loan held by the Department of Education. Please note that you may lose certain loan benefits if you consolidate a Federal Perkins Loan. For more information about Direct Loan Consolidation go to StudentAid.gov.