Student Loans

Anyone have helpful information on paying student loans down?

Check to make sure your minimum payment is covering your interest, especially if you are on an income driven repayment. If not you may want to raise the minimum payment to cover the interest otherwise your balance owed will continue to grow. Also be sure to to let your lender know that any extra payments above the minimum should go to principal. Some lenders will default extra payments to interest if not told otherwise. Then check to see if your lender offers an interest rate deduction for a certain number of on time payments or for using auto debit. The last two tips helped me pay off my student loans two years early because I left my auto debit amount the same after the interest was lowered.

How can I refinance my student loans

Any chance loans will be deferred longer due to covid?

Target higher interest rate loans you'll usually pay less overall interest using the avalanche method.

Look at the secondary benefits of alternative repayment plans. We moved to income-based repayment because it paused interest accrual on the subsidized loans for several years. We still paid as much as we could, which was almost what the monthly payment for the 10-year plan, but made more progress with it due to the waived interest. I'm not sure if that plan still exists or works like that.

Anyone have helpful information on paying student loans down?

There's free financial counseling on the home page here, they should be able to guide you.

Thank you all so much for providing helpful resources for me

There is a program that if you work for a nonprofit organization or government agency and make 120 on-time payments they will forgive the rest of the loan. It's very helpful if you have a large student loan debt!

Thanks for the helpful advice

If your state permits a tax deduction for funding a 529 you can use that to pay your loans. They’ll grow tax free if you choose to invest.

Does anyone have any legit loan forgiveness resources?
They keep calling me, but then want $600 a month payment- which doesn’t seem very forgiving to me, lol.

I never knew all of this information. Thanks guys!

Elena B. I didn't know lenders will default extra payments to interest! I just assumed it would go the principal amount. Thanks for the heads up! I will check on that.

You can try refinancing to get a lower interest rate.