Student loan borrowers are learning a harsh lesson familiar to most adults: when you take out a loan and agree to pay it back, there are consequences if you don’t.

Cue the outrage.

The Department of Education announced that it will restart collecting federal student loans in default on May 5, ending a years-long pandemic-era pause, according to reports.

More than 5 million borrowers are in default, the department said in a news release. Federal student loans go into default after 270 days without payment.

“American taxpayers will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for irresponsible student loan policies,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “The Biden Administration misled borrowers: the executive branch does not have the constitutional authority to wipe debt away, nor do the loan balances simply disappear.”

But that didn’t stop former President Joe Biden from trying his best to court the youth demographic as he tried, repeatedly, to have student loan debt forgiven en masse. The Supreme Court blocked him, but he succeeded with smaller efforts linked to relaxing eligibility requirements for existing programs.

This was great, if you were a borrower hit with the fiscal realities of loans coming due. It wasn’t so great if you were a taxpayer covering this largesse and anticipating that your children and grandchildren would too.

As CNN reported, the Education Department’s Office of Student Aid will restart the Treasury Offset Program, which collects debts by garnishing federal and state payments, such as tax returns or Social Security benefits.

The department’s Monday announcement urged defaulted borrowers to contact the student aid office’s Default Resolution Group and “make a monthly payment, enroll in an income-driven repayment plan, or sign up for loan rehabilitation.”

In other words, things you do when you have to repay money and are having a hard time of it. We can expect the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth over “outrageous” demands for money borrowers owe, as if the debt were thrust upon them unwillingly.

President Donald Trump will be blamed. “The system” will be blamed. But few, if any, will ask the question: Why are college costs so high?

The outrage should be aimed at colleges and universities, who charge enormous sums for a four-year education. Not that the cost of tuition goes to pay for classes exclusively — there is administrative bloat to be fed, and six-figure salaries to be paid within the halls of academia.

Student loan borrowers struggle to pay off loans that covered a chancellor’s million-dollar salary — that’s outrageous.

If politicians really cared about students seeking higher education, they’d target the fat cats of academia, the enormous salaries, and task institutions with providing education that can lead to well-paying jobs.

Student loan borrowers have been sold a bill of goods for years. Keep taking out huge loans and hobble their financial futures.

As McMahon wrote in a Wall Street Journal oped Monday: “Many of the degree-granting programs that qualify for student loans are worthless on the job market, but colleges continue to accept students to these programs and encourage them to borrow to pay for them. Accountability is a two-way street. As we push to hold student borrowers to account, we will also push colleges to be responsible and transparent.”

It’s about time.

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