Education Department extends deadline for student loan interest rate discount

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it will extend the deadline for federal student loan borrowers to get a reduction of 1 percentage point on their interest rate. Previously, the U.S. Department of Education said borrowers had until the end of the day on Wednesday to sign up for the automatic payments and benefit from the reduced rate. Now it says federal student loan holders will have until Dec. 31. Nearly 2 million federal student loan borrowers have signed up for autopay since the discount became available over the summer, the department said.