Student Loan Repayment 101
Unless you plan on being a student the rest of your life, student loan repayment is inevitable, and the ins and outs of student loan repayment can be confusing and overwhelming. The financial advisors at NextStudent, a leading Phoenix-based education funding company, would like to help clear the murky waters by defining terminology and laying out your student loan repayment options.�
Understanding Your Student Loan Repayment Options
A grace period is a pre-determined amount of time allotted to student borrowers after they leave school or drop below half-time enrollment before they must begin repayment of their federal student loans. Grace periods vary in length based on the type of student loan: Stafford loans have a grace period of six months; Perkins loans have a grace period of nine months. PLUS, Grad Plus and Federal Student Loan Consolidation loans have no grace period.
Deferment allows you to temporarily postpone your student loan payments (in most cases, up to a total of three years over the life of the student loan) if you’re unemployed or experiencing economic hardship. You can also request in-school deferments on your federal student loans while you’re enrolled at least half time.
While you’re in a grace period or in deferment, the interest on your Perkins and subsidized Stafford loans will be paid by the government. But you’ll be responsible for the interest on your PLUS, Grad PLUS and unsubsidized Stafford loans—any unpaid interest that accrues on these student loans during grace and deferment periods will be added to your principal loan balance for you to repay once repayment starts or resumes. If you want to avoid interest being added to your principal loan balance while you’re in a grace period or in deferment, you can choose to make interest-only payments during that time.�
Forbearance also allows you to temporarily postpone your student loan payments. When you’re in a forbearance period, you’ll have to pay any interest that accrues, even on Perkins or subsidized Stafford loans.��
Repayment Plans
Perkins, Stafford, PLUS and Grad PLUS loans have a standard repayment period of 10 years. If your standard monthly payment amount is higher than you’d like, you have three other repayment plans you can choose from that may make your monthly payments more affordable:
Extended Repayment is available to you if your federal student loans total more than $30,000 and if you received your first federal student loan on or after October 7, 1998. Depending on your student loan amount, you could extend your repayment period up to a 25-year term.
Graduated Repayment allows you to make lower payments at the beginning of your repayment term and gradually increases your monthly payment amount over time.
Income-Sensitive Repayment bases your monthly payment amount on your monthly income. You have to submit documentation of your income to qualify, and you have to requalify each year.
Student Loan Consolidation
If you’ve taken out any federal student loans, you’re eligible to apply for a Federal Student Loan Consolidation from NextStudent, which might give you more time to repay your student loans and could substantially reduce your monthly student loan payment.
The repayment term on a student loan consolidation will range from 10 to 30 years, depending on your total outstanding student loan amount. Student loan consolidation loans generally have the standard federal deferment and forbearance benefits.
When your student loan consolidation is in deferment, the government will pay the interest on that portion of your student loan consolidation loan that was originally a Perkins loan or subsidized Stafford loan. During deferment, you’ll only be responsible for paying the interest on that portion of your student loan consolidation loan that was originally a PLUS, Grad PLUS or unsubsidized Stafford loan. When your student loan consolidation loan is in forbearance, you’ll be responsible for paying all interest that accrues.
You can consolidate one or more qualifying federal student loans and take advantage of one easy-to-manage loan with a single monthly payment. Our online applications are fast and easy, and there are no fees to apply for a student loan consolidation.
NextStudent believes that getting an education is the best investment you can make, and we’re dedicated to helping you pursue your education dreams by making college funding simple. Learn more about Student Loans, Private Student Loans and Student Loan Consolidation at NextStudent.com.
Watch the video related to student loans
This is our first music video for our song Campbell Hill Backstep. For more information about our band, check out thestudentloanmusic.com!
Help answer the question about student loans
What does it mean when my student loans have a zero balance due to a claim?My student loans are through NelNet and I received a letter from NelNet instructing me to stop making payments. The reason they give is that my student loan account has been paid by a claim and now has a zero balance. I have had student loans since 1995; but I also have filed bankruptcy. What does all this mean? What claim paid my loans off? Did I or someone else get sued for the money?
About Author
Jeff Mictabor is an enthusiast on the topic of student loan issues in the news. He has been writing for the past 10 years for a variety of education publications. He now offers his writing services on a freelance basis.
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18 comments
To get a student loan, your first step is to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). You should submit your FAFSA as soon as possible – you can make estimates and correct the details later.
Once you’ve completed your FAFSA, you’ll want to visit your school’s student aid office. Ask what kind of aid you might expect.
Try this site
http://free-college-information-usa.blogspot.com/
Free College information on financial aid for students, scholarship, student loans and more.
Nope, unless they take you to court and your bank received a subpoena from them.
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No one will "take over" your loans. You will still owe the money to your lender when you are in forbearance. They will simply add interest every month while you are making payments.
If you are asking about defaulting the lender will just contract out with a collection agency to start calling and hounding you to mail them payments. If you make 6 to 12 months worth of willing and reasonable payments you can ask your lender to "rehabilitate" your loan. This is when you are issued a new loan and pay off the one in default so you can get federal fin aid again. Again, rehabilitation can only be done after you have made 6 to 12 months of payments.
When your federal educational loans are in default, you have several options:
You can repay the loan in full.
You can negotiate a new payment plan with your lender.
You can "rehabilitate" your loan.
You can consolidate your loan.
Obviously option one is rarely attractive or possible for defaulted borrowers.
Option two (renegotiate) should be investigated fully - most borrowers skip this step, but it's probably the best option for most people. Call your lender and ask to speak to someone in the "Workout" Department. Explain your situation to them (there's nothing unusual about it) and ask what options are available to you for switching to a graduated, extended or income-sensitive repayment plan. If your lender will agree to change your repayment plan, a few regular payments will get your default status removed, and the new plan may be easier for you to keep up with.
Option three (rehabilitation) is really a specific form of a workout agreement. It probably won't help you much in your situation, because it requires an agreement between you and the lender that will allow you to make 9 consecutive on-time payments of some agreed-upon amount.
Option four is everyone's favorite, but you must absolutely understand what a consolidation loan will do. To keep this utterly simple - a consolidation loan is a brand new loan that will pay off your old, defaulted loan. A consolidation loan MAY lower your monthly payments, but understand how this works. A consolidation loan never lowers your payments by wiping away some of your debt - a consolidation loan lowers your payments by stretching out the length of your loan. If you pay less every month, you'll make many additional monthly payments, and - in the end - you'll pay far more back than you would have paid on the original loan.
As an example: Suppose I lent you $100 and you agreed to pay me back in 2 weeks by paying me $50 a week. You came back a few days later and explained that you weren't going to be able to afford to pay me $50 - is there something else we could do? "Oh, absolutely," I'd say, gallantly. "Instead of paying me $50 a week for 2 weeks, how about if you only pay me $10 a week for 17 weeks?"
See - in the end, you'll pay me back $170 instead of $100 - that's how a consolidation loan works. But remember - we're not talking a $100 loan for a couple of weeks - by the time you pay that $5000 loan of yours back over many years, you'll pay a few thousand more than you might have paid if you didn't consolidate that loan.
I've attached some information about consolidating from the Department of Education - take a few minutes to read it over. If you do choose to go this route, be sure to consolidate with a reputable lender (or directly with the government) and not with some fly-by-night operation that you learn about from some pay-per-click site shilled on Yahoo! Answers.
Good luck to you!
It seems like everyone who answers on this subject just refer you to a website. Here's my knowledge so far on my son's student loan… He just got accepted for his first fiscal year in school and the fine print states that if you pay $1000 when your payment is only $250 (example), then your next payment wouldn't be due until after those other payments are paid from what was left of the $1000, meaning, you have an extra three months of payments paid from that money before you had to pay again. Make sense? But no matter if you overpay or pay monthly, you do need to make sure you pay on time, or it could affect your credit rating. I'm not sure what you're saying on your second part, but all loans have a minimum payment due each month, if that's what you're talking about. So what it comes down to is that you can always pay more than what you owe. No bank will turn down money early.
That is a question they should be able to answer for you. Is it possible there was a class action suit? Or included in bankruptcy? Contact them and find out.
n
awesome guys!
No, you can only deduct the interest when you actually pay it, not when it accrues
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fun!
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-Chevin
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pretty much sweet
j:
As long as you remain a full-time student, you will continue to qualify for "in-school deferment". You won't have to begin paying your loans back until you finish law school.
The only requirement is that you remain registered at least half-time at an eligible institution, and that you don't take more than 6 months off at any time during your schooling.
By the way - this is an automatic feature of government-backed student loans (Stafford/Perkins/PLUS), but it is not necessarily characteristic of all private loans. Also remember that the in-school deferment requires attendance at an "eligible" school. Some students have pursued law or medical degrees at foreign universities, only to discover that some of these schools are not participants in the Federal Student Aid program, and therefore, ineligible for in-school deferment.
I hope that helps - good luck to you!
With 20 years experience in the mortgage business, I have never seen a student loan that was in repayment treated any differently than any other long term debt. While you may be able to ask for a hardship deferal in the future, which is the only advantage on a student loan that doesn't exist on a standard installment loan, no lender wants to anticipate that circumstance. As long as the payments extend past 10 months in the future, the lender will only use your monthly payment as part of your qualifying ratios. The total debt is not that important and would only be a minor factor. What will matter more is your payment history on the student loan: it should be perfect. It all comes down to the quality of your credit history (your FICO score) and your qualifying ratios of debt/income.
Try this site
http://free-college-information-usa.blogspot.com/
Free College information on financial aid for students, scholarship, student loans and more.
That was tasty!
I want some Janitor’s Poker-Style Chicken and a Grounds coffee right now!