Behind on your student loan? Here's what to know about wage garnishment.

Americans with student loans who are behind on their payments could face having their wages garnished and other serious financial consequences now that the Trump administration restarted collections earlier this month.

Repayments on student debt had been paused for five years since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the U.S. economy and caused unemployment to soar. Nearly 43 million borrowers owe a total of more than $1.6 trillion in student debt, according to the Department of Education.

Of that number, more than 5 million are in default on their loans, meaning they haven't made a monthly payment in more than 360 days, the agency says. An additional 4 million borrowers are in late-stage delinquency, having not made a payment in at least 91 days. The DOE expects that 10 million, or 25% of student borrowers, could be in default on their loans in a matter of months.

In the first three months of the year, the delinquency rate for student loans jumped from less than 1% to nearly 8%, according to recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Older Americans are in worse shape when it comes to repaying student debt than younger borrowers. Although Americans over 50 years of age make up just 20% of those with outstanding college loans, they account for 33% of delinquencies, according to Oxford Economics which notes that younger borrowers are in relatively better shape.

Student loans differ from other types of consumer debt in that there is no statute of limitations on collections, meaning the government can pursue punitive actions for defaulted loans indefinitely, noted Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel at the Student Borrower Protection Center.

"It's so much worse than just about any other financial product," Yu told CBS MoneyWatch. "It's a really small universe of things that have these harsh penalties."

And because collections were paused for five years due to the pandemic, some student loan borrowers may have forgotten about the severe financial consequences of defaulting. "It's left the collective consciousness," she said.

Here's what to know about the potential repercussions of defaulting on student debt, including when your wages can be garnished.

The Trump administration announced on April 21 that the office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) would resume collections on defaulted federal student loans starting May 5. The DOE said at the time that it would email notices to borrowers in default over the following two weeks to make "them aware of these developments."

Notices from the FSA informing borrowers that their wages could be garnished will come "later this summer," the DOE said.

Under the law, a lender can garnish borrowers' pay without going to court provided it has given them at least 60 days notice, generally by email, before initiating the collection action.

"All they have to do is send borrowers a notice that they are going to take your money, and you have 60 days to respond," Yu said.

Given that collections on student loans resumed earlier this month, people could begin to see their wages garnished in the fall, according to experts.

The government notice informs people how to start making payments, enroll in an income-driven repayment plan or sign up for loan rehabilitation to avoid having a portion of their paychecks seized. It doesn't, however, instruct borrowers how they can stop wage garnishment.

"The notices the Trump administration is sending out do not lay out defenses and don't lay out the right to appeal wage garnishment on basis of financial hardship, and that's really important for borrowers to understand," Yu said.

A lender may garnish up to 15% of your disposable pay, but must leave borrowers with the equivalent of 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage of $7.25, or $217.50 per week. That applies even if a borrower resides in a state where the minimum wage is higher than the federal level.

Yes. In addition to wages, the federal government may also seize tax refunds and Social Security retirement and disability benefits when loans are in default.

If you've already filed your taxes and received a refund, it's protected, Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program in New York, told CBS MoneyWatch. "But you'd be on notice if you asked for an extension," she explained.

The government or a lender would likely have to take a borrower to court in order to target other assets.

"That would entail getting a judgment and doing some kind of court intervention, and those are relatively rare," Nierman said.

Beyond possibly leading to wage garnishment, defaulting on a student loan hurts in other ways. It damages your credit, which raises borrowing costs or limits access to credit like mortgages and car loans.

In some cases, student loan borrowers have the right to contest their default status. First, the debt might not be their own. Second, they might not owe the amount of debt the government claims they do. Third, they can claim that wage garnishment would cause them financial hardship.

"There are legitimate reasons why they can stop wage garnishment from occurring," Yu said. "But I am very worried these notices aren't telling people about the full scope of the relief."

Borrowers can also get current on their loans through other methods. For example, consider requesting loan rehabilitation to get out of default by making nine on-time payments in full over a 10-month period.

You can also avoid entering default and having wages garnished through loan consolidation. Essentially, this process replaces your old debt with a new loan that's in good standing and on which you can start making payments. If you're able to repay your loans in full, that's another way to exit default.