Garnishments are starting early in 2026. There are warning notices on the federal student aid website. And the SAVE program is ending relatively soon (but not immediately). If you don’t choose another program to enroll in they will switch you over to whatever they want.
If you have no wages to garnish they will take your federal tax refund if you have one (they will take that anyway if you are in default) . So the better part of wisdom is to owe less than $200 in federal taxes so you don’t have a refund coming you will lose but also won’t have to pay a penalty for owing more than $200.
If possible find a job that helps with student loan payments, or a non-profit/government job as then after 10 years of 120 on time payments of the full amount you owe the rest will be written off and you won’t get a 1099-C (so won’t have to pay taxes on the written off part).
If you are unemployed they will eventually get you taking 15% of your social security (although they are required to leave you $750 to live on).
It moght work not paying if you move overseas and work there in a non-USA owned/controlled job. Then they have no way to garnish your wages. Of course then you pay through the teeth when you retire as you won’t have paid into the social security system here.
Essentially you can run but you can’t hide. In the end they will get you. Pick your poison. The only thing you can hope is with the massive firing of federal student aid employees it might take them more time to get you. And you need to hope they haven’t focuses on automating this. But they will, eventually, get you.
