Free Repayment Guide » In Repayment » Integrate Life Events » Consider Alternative Repayment Options

Consider Alternative Repayment Options

If you're in repayment, your budget is not sustainable, and you have very little discretion on cutting items out of your budget – that is, if you expect to have effectively permanent problems with repayment – you may have to consider changing your repayment plan to one that reduces your monthly payments.  There are 3 primary options:

• Graduated Repayment
• Income-Related Repayment
• Extended Repayment

The Department of Education Web site has a summary of the available plans, as does FinAid!.  Both Web sites include calculators that will show you how long it will take to pay off your loans and how much it will end up costing you in the end.  Remember, you can change your repayment plan if you change your mind, but there are limitations on how frequently you can change.

On the other hand, if your budget is more than sustainable and you want to accelerate your payments so that your student loan debt is off the books sooner than planned, you might want to change to an income-related repayment plan that increases your payments proportionally with your income.  In addition, there is no penalty for prepaying your federal student loans, so you can create a plan all on your own!

Once you've decided on your repayment plan, you can enact that decision on your student loan servicer's Web site.

Chaperone Assist ⇒ Combining PayOff Live's repayment optimizer with personalized counseling, your Student Loan Chaperone can help you determine the best repayment option for you.

• Subtask Complete!
• Task Complete!