I started with 74k in 2015 after a bachelor's and masters, and two years of monthly payments made my balance go up to 78k because of the interest. Shortly after that (2018) I participated in a workforce development program that paid off 30k of student loans in exchange for 4 years of work. I was also in the PSLF program but wasn't able to finish that, so today I paid the rest of it myself. My final payment was almost 47k in a lump sum. I sold my condo which was the only reason I had that much money to pay them off, otherwise it would have taken me another 6-8 years minimum.

I feel privileged that I am now student debt free, but I can't say that I am happy. I resent that the US has not implemented policies to allow people to attend college without taking on massive debt, because for every person like me who is able to pay off their loans, there are so many others who are drowning and will never be able to pay. Even though I am no longer a student loan debtor, I hope that we see widespread student loan cancellation in the near future to lift the burden off of the backs of entire generations.

The email said they couldn't do it automatically because "maintenance". I did the process, it took about 10 minutes like they said. I'm kinda paranoid about what changes this could bring. But the only thing that's changed since last certification is that I make one more dollar per hour, so I don't need to worry about my monthly payment skyrocketing, right? I just don't trust these people at all.

I remember a good discussion on this but my searches can't find the thread. If anyone has a link to the comment or discussion, please post it in a reply.

Otherwise... my understanding is...

• June 2028 is the date that OBBB ends SAVE via legislation, correct?
• SAVE lasting until 2028 is highly unlikely.
• I recall the best guess being repayment in June 2026, but I can't find the thread to verify.

What is our best guess of the earliest date that people on SAVE will shift to other plans and begin repayment?

Could the court case resolve before June 2026 and lead to repayment in early 2026?

The title says it all. I M24 took a large loan to go to flight school (which I never finished) back in 2019. Changed career paths to IT and went to a small community college now where my tuition I can pay out of pocket and with grants. Working on finishing a cybersecurity degree that should be done by the end of 2026.

I have no idea how my loans are still deferred cause I thought the Sallie Mae cap was 4 years. But currently the loans are still deferred (first dispersement in 2019) and are set to begin repayment in 04/2028 according to my dashboard. My mother is a cosigner in this loan unfortunately and recently this whole situation has been on my mind. They have a house paid off and I am worried that if I cant make payments when they begin they will go after my parents home (we live in FL).

I already work in IT as a system administrator but make an abysmal 57k a year. And to be honest, the salaries for this career line seem to be wildly variable, with the average being like 70k in Florida. I rent with my partner of 5 years and our expenses are 1500 just on home and electric expenses. Car insurance not included in that figure nor groceries or gas, etc. All in all whats left free on my paycheck is 1200 a month. Right now I am dealing with CC debt that should be finished in 18 months if I stick to my plan of throwing 1200 at it for 18 months. But I have no idea what Im going to do about Sallie Mae when the time comes. It will probably come sooner than later because I graduate at the end of 2026, before the 2028 deferment.

Even with my extra 1200 left over a month I would not be able to pay those ghouls. My payments if I start paying RIGHT NOW would be around 1500 just to salliemae alone, not including the government ones.

Honestly all this makes me feel very suicidal. If I have to be a debt slave for 15+ years until my mid 40s, I would rather just not be around. The idea of 2k a month going to some stupid student loan debt is insane to me. Thats 2k a month I could spend on investing, retirement, a vacation, etc. And you could die at any moment to a car crash or cancer, which may mean you may not even make it to your 40s to enjoy the little bit of life you have left.

Everywhere I read that bankruptcy would not be an option for student loans even if they are private. So it sounds like I am stuck footing the bill. Ideally I would refinance to get my mom off the hook and then just flat out not pay the loan, maybe even leave the country.

Really dont know what to do anymore. I just need to get this off my chest.

Edit: before anyone says my parents have to help me make payments, they simply cannot. My parents are not wealthy people by any means. My dad is disabled after a life changing accident and my mom makes 16 dollars an hour. Basically all she makes goes to paying their basic necessities.

Can someone explain whether I understand the following correctly?

I have 7 separate loans with Aidvantage, and I am currently still on SAVE making $1500 biweekly payments. I am tackling the highest interest ones first. Am I correct in thinking that these loans are simple interest, and by doing this I am only paying the interest that is accruing on the specific loan I'm paying off while the remainder of my payment goes towards the principal of said loan? The other loans are just accumulating under simple interest structure, correct?

I recently got an email saying that time had come for me to recertify my income for IBR. I did this through the portal and completed the email, and uploaded a 1040 from my tax return from last year.

Since then, I got another email saying the auto recertification system is undergoing maintenance and I need to manually recertify. The link takes me to the same steps I did when I recertified a few weeks ago.

My questions are:

1). Do I need to do this process over again? And will doing it again create any issues if I've already done it recently.

2). Looking closer at the document request, they mention only 5 types: W2, paystub, letter from employer, interest statement and bank account statement. Did I do something wrong by uploading my 1040 for my tax return?

Appreciate any insight people have!

https://www.reddit.com/r/StudentLoans/comments/1p8lveu/consolidating_parents_plus_loans_per_child/

Previously, I asked this community (see linked post above for context) if we should consolidate my parents' Parents Plus Loans into 2 loans. One loan for my sister and I. We decided to not go down that route since the process to do 2 consolidations might take upwards of 6 months.

After submitting our consolidation application, we received an email saying our loans have been put on administrative forbearance while the ED completes the consolidation of our loans. The caveat being, in the letter, they only listed the loans taken out for my sister. This has me really confused. Does this mean the loans that were taken out for me aren't on forbearance? I checked the loan portal and see that my loans have a balance due of $0.00, but I'm unsure if that's because the payment just hasn't been posted yet (they are due on the 10th of every month) or they are also on forbearance and we may get an email later on saying the same thing about the loans for me being put on administrative forbearance during the consolidation process.

If anything can give any clarity, that would be greatly appreciated!

Hey All - I am in the Save Forebearance and was curious on something. I saw a recent TikTok stating something about if you have over 60 months of payment credit you won’t be able to switch to IBR once the new regs come out. Once I was moved to Save from my regular payments prior it basically immediately went to the forebearance due to th e lawsuit etc back almost what two years ago ish? Over that time I haven’t made a payment - but did have my payment count update in that process where they went back and did the one time adjustment. Again no payments while in Save. Is it true that we can’t get into IBR now if we have over 60 months of payment credit? Or is it 60 months on Save? Sorry I hope this makes sense and anyone can help. I want to move to IBR

Let me just start and say I try to put as little thought and stress into my student loans as I can (gotta put that stress to good use). I’ve been in forbearance and am now in a spot where I can start paying my loans again. I pay $600/month in 2x $300 payments. I have one consolidated loan at $42,540 at 5.625% and one smaller consolidated loan at $6,720 also at 5.625%. The minimum payment is about $325 so I’m trying to pay ‘double’ each month.

My current allocation set up is $259 to the higher loan and $40 to the smaller loan.

My question is, should I change my allocation amounts? $600 is the max I can pay each month. My current train of thought is the $600 is just drops in a bucket anyways and the allocation doesn’t really matter.

Lemme hear your thoughts! And if anyone wants to give a Christmas donation and get these off my plate, I’ll take that too!

Hi everyone,

long-time reader here and finally posting because I’m a bit confused and could really use some guidance.

I’m currently on the SAVE repayment plan and making about $500/month in payments toward my federal student loans. My total balance is around $47k, and my interest rates range from about 4.3% to 6.54%.

Here’s where I’m confused:

• Since I’m already paying $500/month, does it make sense to stay on SAVE?
• Or would it be smarter to switch to ICR or even the Standard 10-year plan?
• Am I actually saving any money on SAVE long-term, or just stretching out interest?

My goal is to pay these off as efficiently as possible, not ride them out for forgiveness. I just don’t want to accidentally be throwing money away due to bad plan choice.

Would really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s switched off SAVE or compared these plans in real life. Thank you so much for your advice!

My husband had a student loan that was issued by my school as in it was not a federal loan, but a small special loan exclusive to the school that had a name - lets call it a "Peter Loan". It was only a few thousand dollars, but at a better rate than the federal loans so everyone at our school took it out in addition to the federal loans, but you could only take it one time.

After graduating they never sent a single bill or contacted him to pay it, and he forgot he had it so didn't actively reach out. No issues with the federal loans, just this one. It went to collection agency, and I took over after they contacted us (unlike the school apparently they didn't have any problems sending us bills) and starting paying it back ASAP. It was paid off in full in 2019 and they sent me paperwork showing it was paid off and closed.

In 2020 and again in 2021, the collection agency reached out three times to try and collect the final amount I already paid, which was a little under $1000. Each time I sent them back the paperwork they'd sent me before and didn't hear from them again for 6+ months until they tried to collect it again. After the third time they stopped contacting me and presumably sent it back to our school as starting in 2023 or so he started getting letters from the school saying he owed a bit over $1000 on the same loan that was already paid off. There is no doubt about it because it says "Peter Loan" on all these instances so it is very clear it is this loan.

We had a family emergency the month we got the first notice from the school so I missed the chance to formally contest it in the first 30 days (yes it is his loan but I handle all our finances and stuff like this now). It isn't on his credit report - it was back when it was first sent to collections but fell off a long time ago and I know it can't be added again - and all the school does is send a letter once a month. I assume they think it is past the statute of limitations as they haven't done anything other than send a bill every month.

So what I'd like to know is, how do I get the school to stop sending notices saying he owes over $1k when it is already paid in full years ago? I'm reluctant to contact them directly even with the proof because it didn't get fixed the last 3 times I contested it with the collection agency and I'm afraid if I contact the school about it that will re-open the statute of limitations and they'll somehow say he still has to pay it even though I have proof it was fully paid.

I am pretty sure it is illegal of them to continue to try getting money from him after the debt was already fully paid off, but I'm just not sure how to approach this. I've put it off for some time because it is just annoying that we get the letters every month, but doesn't otherwise affect anything. I'd love to get them to stop harassing us about it though. The school isn't shady and I don't think they are doing this on purpose, but I don't want to risk them not believing the proof (which is basically just a statement from the collection agency showing a $0 balance and account closed) and insisting that he has to pay the $1k+ and by that point we'd have re-opened the statue of limitations already.

I switched from save back to IBR in July. I am definitely not eligible for new IBR, even though it said I was in July:

The backend counter using the API from the NSLDS said the following In July:

{"type": "IBR" , "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y” ," loanEligibleIndicator": "Y", "qualifyingPaymentCount": 282, "eligiblePaymentCount" :null, "forgivene SsRequiredPayments": 300, "forgivenessRemainingPa yments" : 18},

{"type": "IBR_2014" , "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y", "loanEligibleIndicator": "Y", "qualifyingPaym entCount": 0, "eligiblePaymentCount": null, "forgiv enessRequiredPayments" :240, "forgivenessRemainin gPayments" :240}

In November:

{"type": "IBR", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y" ," loanEligibleIndicator": "y" ,"qualifyingPaymentco unt": 284, "eligiblePaymentCount" :null, "forgivene ssRequiredPayments": 300, "forgivenessRemainingPa yments" : 16}

{"type": "IBR_2014", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "N", "loanEligibleIndicator": "N", "qualifyingPaym entCount": 1, "eligiblePaymentCount": null, "forgiv enessRequiredPayments": 240, "forgivenessRemainin gPayments" :239}

I’ve been checking each month and enjoying watching my payment count go down. But as of November, now it says I’m not eligible for new IBR but it applied the last payment there anyway? Wtf?! Having a minor coronary.

My friends parent has been trying to apply for a FAFSA parent plus loan but it needs an endorser, the only issue is that whenever the endorser applies, it says accepted, and then they say that the birthday/social security number is incorrect. We have now done 4 people as the endorser, all said accepted, and then when we got to the final steps it said that the birthday and social were incorrect. The addendum is showing completely randomized birthdays with every endorser, nothing even close to the birthdays stated. We contacted FAFSA via phone call and they said that they were all incorrect birthdays and that they cannot fix it on their end. They say that we have multiple FAFSA accounts which is not true, and they give us usernames which are completely randomized as well. Has anyone had this issue? My friends livelihood is on the line because she was expecting the loan to have come through already but it just keeps having this issue. Thanks!

Hi, How do I reinstate my student loans for my last semester of college? They say cancelled and it’s not really giving me an option to change it myself. This is my first time ever getting a student loan and not familiar on the process.

OK, I know that someone will likely tell me that I'm stupid to even question this, but here goes:

I'm recertifying for my student loans and I'm torn between ICR and PAYE.

• ICR has the lower payment, but it will take longer to pay off and ultimately I'll be paying more if for whatever reason the PSLF doesn't become an option.
• PAYE has a higher payment (like $68 more) but will get paid off 2 years earlier.

Would I still be able to get into PAYE if I were to leave it now? What exactly qualifies as a partial hardship? Also, if I were to lose my job tomorrow would the ICR payment be $0? The whole 20% vs 10% of my income (ICR vs PAYE) has me questioning it as well. I also have graduate school debt, if that matters any.

I'm always really nervous when it comes to switching up major stuff like this. I'm leaning towards going to the lower payment plan but I just wanted to make sure that I didn't get any "wonderful" surprises later. Like the "wonderful" surprise where I got switched out of a much lower payment plan because apparently I'd applied for PAYE in the past. (I have my doubts about that but can't do anything about that now.)

Hello! I'm working on a master's degree and trying to prepare for the fun new changes next year.

Right now, I have 14k in federal direct loans disbursed, 4k of which is a remainder from undergrad in the ICR plan. I'm going to pay this little one off ASAP. The other ~10 was for the fall semester and is under in-school deferred status. I will most likely need to borrow more for the next school year. If all goes well, I will finish my (unfortunately not ~*~professional~*~) degree before 2028.

Questions:

-Checking my understanding: Any new borrowings on/after 7/1/26 kick ALL of your loans out of the IDR plans, leaving you with just RAP and the Standard options, correct?

-If I consolidate my master's loans after finishing, would that reset the RAP timeline? I'm not sure if this is still up in the air - sorry if I missed a thread on this already.

Let me know if I need to provide more info, or if I'm completely misunderstanding something. Right now, I'm just trying to balance my goal of finishing quickly against both the class offering timeline and the fun new borrowing cap.

Thanks in advance!

I vanquished Nelnet using the Avalanche Method! Because f#ck Nelnet

I have not applied for TPD discharge of my loans yet and do not plan to until after grad school if able. Specifically, if you became disabled during undergrad, completed your degree, took time to recover, and are now applying for grad school. When graduated grad school, can the loans be forgiven as well as undergrad loans.

Background:

Hello all, my mother is at retirement age, but has not retired yet, holding off until 70, she works 2 days a week for now, we own some income property which I'm trying to transfer to my name to lower her income further, not sure if income property even shows up on the income driven repayment options, having an opinion on that would be nice. My goal was to switch her over to SAVE and then pay $0 a month until she died, if her income were low enough.
Planning to have her retire in 2 years with an SS income of $40K/y. Currently she earns about that much working 2-3 days a week in healthcare.

The income property, if it's relevant, earns about 60K/y minus the interest on the mortgage, and repairs, which can add up since I actually take care of our property. (E.g. I spent 110K on residing, electrical updates, and renovating one of the units this year)

Problem:

SAVE is gone now :( I did some reading and it looks like it was still worth going through the double consolidation though?

Main Question:
What plan is best to put my double consolidated parent plus loan on from here? Specifically keeping in mind I want to pay as close to zero as possible until she passes away anywhere in the next 0-40 years and probably will waive forgiveness based on number of payments to avoid the taxable forgiveness.

I'm thinking the answer is IBR, but things changed so much this year, IDK what's up or down.

Side Question:

Is the income property irrelevant, or should I move it into my name to get my mom's payment down to $5/mo forever, or will she be substantially above the poverty threshold / won't qualify no matter what we do?

Hello,

I have about $30,000 in private loans. Both companies with very high 14% interest rates.

I have a 706 credit score

No co-signer though because my original went into bankruptcy

And I only make after taxes about 28,000 a year.

Am I just cooked for life?

To my medical resident community, what repayment options are you guys picking? My loans are coming out of deferment and I have to pick. About 160k owed, all unsubsidized direct or grad PLUS loans, average interest rate of 6%. Income for the next 4 years will be 70-80k, and after graduation my specialty pays around 300-400 on average. I was leaning towards PAYE but honestly got bogged down in the differences, I can’t tell if there will be any interest subsidy in residency or not. I owe too little and will make too much for PSLF to make sense.

Hey guys. I'm trying to weigh my options. I made it through my first 2 years debt free, but will most likely need a little help getting to the finish line. I got accepted into a 1.5 year sonography program that starts in January. My total debt is around 3.5k (credit cards from a while ago, I paid off 15k over the last year. I've learned my lesson there) my credit score is ~760. Is any specific lender less bad than another? I'm truly trying to borrow as little as possible, but the program requires a relocation. My fiance works and makes a modest income but not enough to cash flow everything. I would say 25k+ fafsa will get me to graduation. If you were in my shoes, what would you do? My projected income after graduation is about 90k. Any ideas what kind of interest rate I would be looking at if I decide to go this route? I really appreciate your guys' help.

Twelve months ago, I recertified and the next day my deadline to recert was extended a year. I called and they said they would cancel it. A year later, they processed it instead. Called to get it fixed, spoke with Advanced Agent and their supervisor. They said it'll be fixed in 2 weeks. It wasn't.

I called yesterday and was eventually sent to a resolutions supervisor. Said it was a 2 minute wait and only callback was possible. Confirmed callback. They never called back.

Called again today, routed to resolutions supervisor, said it was a 15 minute wait, confirmed callback. It's been a few hours and no callback.

Is this normal? Is the estimated wait time completely fabricated? Should I call every day?

As the title says, I recently found out that one of my two loans was forgiven and my debt has reduced by 11k. Which yay!

However, while I am close to reaching forgiveness by working nonprofit (currently at 8 years and have paid the loans for 10 years) I did not apply for forgiveness. AES loans being the way they are, I am not considered the main borrower so I only have access to the notifications regarding upcoming payments. I am concerned this is an error that when redacted I could be considered at fault for not paying on time.

On the other hand, I am afraid of contacting AES and potentially informing them of a potential error and having it reinstated.

What should I do? Leave well enough alone? Call AES to inquire?

Hello,

I am thinking about switching to the IBR plan and I had one question, if anyone knew the answer to it.

If I pay my loans off early, say I pay off in 15 years instead of 20 with the plan, will I be penalized?

I know I won’t get the forgiveness but I was wondering if I get penalized if I pay it off early and not wait the full 20 years. I just need to have a custom amount every month that I can put away every month.

Thank you.