Wow. What the fuck ever happened to forbearance for hardship in federal student loans?! When my wife and I were at university ('94-97, transfer from paying ou

Wow. What the fuck ever happened to forbearance for hardship in federal student loans?! When my wife and I were at university ('94-97, transfer from paying our way through community college) we both had Stafford government subsidized loans through Sallie Mae. When we graduated and I got a job as a software developer & her as a teacher, I then got hit with the layoffs after the dot-com bust all of three years later and was unemployed for 6 months (e.g April - October). During that time, both my wife and I waere able to take advantage of what is known as "forbearance" on both our student loans because I was out of work - deferring payments, but still accruing interest on about $500 perm month in 2000's money for our $40k worth of loans combined. It made the difference between keeping & loosing our car and apartment in Seattle between her meager paycheck as a teacher and my unemployment checks. Why in the HELL isn't this still an option? Why the hell should Trump or any politician be crooning about simply cutting the goddamned interest alone that students today are getting soaked for when they could simply put all the payments on "pause" for the weeks it will take for this to blow over?