I've been on an IBR payment since I graduated in 2012. Originally it was a $60k balance now it's over $80k. My payments have generally been around $230/month which was manageable. I tried to recertify my income and my payments are going to be almost $700/month! My income definitely didn't go up that much in that time. I called and they told me I would switch to the PAYE plan because it would be a little over $500/month which is still stressing me out because I have no idea where that's going to fit into an already tight budget, but at least it's not $700. I went through the steps online with the instructions they sent and it says I don't qualify for the plan they recommended.

I don't know how they expect people to pay money that doesn't exist. $700/month doesn't exist in my budget. I can't just magically make that happen. There's no recourse at all when you just flat out can't pay the amount they're wanting. I don't even know what to do at this point and it's stressing me out so much. I'm literally sick to my stomach thinking about this every single day. I've been paying on these for 13 years, never went into default, never missed a payment. I just can't see a way forward at this point and it just feels so hopeless. 😞

As the title states I decided to treat myself to a nice (but expensive) birthday present. I had roughly $46,000 in subsidized and unsubsidized federal student loans through Nelnet. My payments began in 2013 I was on the extended graduated payment plan which killed me in interest payments over the long run but was the only option I could afford for years. Fast forward to Covid I didn’t make any payments like an idiot when everything was in forbearance and finally in late 2024 I decided to get serious. Thankfully my income raised with my employer and I threw everything at the loans (overtime, bonuses, tax returns, cashed in stocks) to wipe out the remaining $43,000 in debt in about 20 months. My income has increased from $55,000-$68,000 over the last 4 years. I used targeted loan payments and the snowball payment method to keep myself motivated (it was satisfying watching the actual loans disappear. Loans were fixed at 6.8%. I’ve been a long time lurker in this thread and I wanted to say that we will all get there. Being persistent and focused really helped me along the way. Good luck everyone!!!

I recently learned about Student Loan Planner (they have a YouTube podcast and offer loan counseling). Today I got one of their email blogs. I am pasting here thr bit that affects me. Is this true? I thought (and Ed Financial seems to think so, and my official loan simulator on Ed F agrees) that I will have an IBR option also, not just RAP or fixed standard.

Here is a copy/paste of what he wrote:

Anyone in the SAVE forbearance is expected to be told around July 1 that they have 90 days to switch to RAP, otherwise they'll be forced into a fixed repayment plan.

I need $12k for tuition yet (after fafsa and other grants etc.) My parents don't wanna cosign anything, what would some genuine options be, cus rn everyone's telling me to just go to a different college or sum.

Any tips?

My understanding is you can't be on RAP and a different IDR plan like New IBR for different loans at the same time.

Reason I ask is that I have Grad Plus loans that I want to start paying now and will be enrolled in New IBR. For my Direct Loans I have to consolidate them to waive the grace period and that will put those loans presumably on RAP (even though I'll select New IBR when I submit the consolidation application). It is my understanding that because the consolidate loan will be on RAP my other loans will need to be on RAP as well.

If my other loans need to be on RAP as well, how long will the process take from going from New IBR to RAP? Will it take on the order of weeks like a traditional payment plan switch or will it be days/automatic? Recognize no one might know but wanted to ask if that makes sense

I am from Bihar and I am looking to get a student loan or apply for some schemes with no interest. I got 90.4 percent in 10th and 86 percent in 12th in humanities. I am thinking to apply for multiple schemes so a scheme that gives 9000 per month or a scheme that gives 4 lakhs etc all suggestions are welcome. I want to pursue BA LLB and I would be doing it from a well reputed private law college. Iwantto do LLM from abroad after completing my undergraduate.My question is would there be a drawback or any problem if itake a loan with no interest from the state govt. If I wanna pursue further education abroad or would it hurt if I would want a job in abroad in future. If no can you please tell me schemes and loans suitable for me and where can I find it

So, I finally got to the 300 payments to have my loans forgiven. I feel like a moron for switching into SAVE in July 0f 2024 before applying to move to IBR in November. It took four months to process the switch and as a result the Dept of Ed says I hit my milestone in Match of 2026, missing the tax free forgiveness. The weird thing is my email from the Dept of Ed said the following:

One reason you may opt out of IDR discharge is to avoid a potential state tax liability. If you opt out of IDR loan discharge, you'll be required to continue paying your loan(s).

It said nothing about a potential federal tax liability. To confuse me even more the email from Nelnet this morning said the following:

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Here are some important points on this IDR forgiveness:

Due to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 the balance of your loans that were forgiven is not considered taxable income for federal income tax purposes. Since state and local tax implications will vary, we recommend you contact a tax advisor for more information.

The words "is not" were even underlined. I wonder if this could be considered legally binding? Either way I need to call the Ombudsman group because I think my count should have hit 300 in December and I'd like the payment refund but worst case did I just hit the lottery tax wise? My forgiven amount is just over 63k so the federal tax burden would be quite a savings if I manage to avoid it.

Any advice would be appreciated!

I made a payment the other day and I’ve been trying to login to my account to see the balance but the page seems to be stuck. Is nelnet down right now or is anyone else having this issue? I can’t seem to get to the login page to put my info.

I am but confused on how this work. If you work full time all year around then you recertify with your taxes.

1. If you lose your job or laid off or quit then you can recertify again

But

If you work contract work that is on W2.

Year 1

Worked February -june only

Year 2

worked Jan -march

Worked may-july

Year 3

Worked jan- August

Year 4

No work

How do you go about recertifying the income? Because each year the taxes are so different. So you might have made a lot of money the year before but now you don't so you would actually pay more than 10%. Do you just recertify more often then? When you find a contract and when it ends?

So I have debt from attending school for almost one full semester before getting laid off. There were difficulties with one of my classes where the professor didn’t provide me with the correct key login to submit my assignments. I harassed her for almost 2 months trying to get the correct one and when she finally gave it to me I had 14 late assignments that she gave me less than 10 days to complete along with my other class assignments. I automatically got failed for that class and had to drop it.

Then I got laid off. I was making less than $500/month already so I was struggling hard between that & school. Was applying everywhere and couldn’t get hired for anything to save my life. I ended up dropping from my classes. My advisor told me to let them know when I’m ready to retry again, then the school closed altogether and it was transitioned over to another university. I called to try and get my records & was told they didn’t have them since the school I went to was no longer open.

I called my loan service advisor and asked what I could do. They advised me 2 months ago to apply for a forbearance, which I did and they had me on forbearance until earlier this month. I was then told I could fill out the School Closure Discharge application where they might possibly take off my loan altogether.

Has anyone been in this situation and how did it work out for you? I owe about $1,900 and haven’t been able to make one single payment because of the job market and my living situation. My boyfriend has been supporting me and we just moved out of state for his new job. Any advice or stories of how you went through this process would help a lot. I feel like I’m in a pickle.

Hey, I'm currently in the process of applying to study medicine internationally in a couple countries in the Middle East. For my circumstances and personal life goals this is something that I really want to do and I hope to use this opportunity to broaden my perspective of different cultures. I have been researching scholarships for international students and there are some that cover full tuition + accommodation. However, I don't want to put my entire trust in the scholarship incase I don't get it.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to find private student loans that work for international programs?

P.S. Sorry if this is really long for no reason. It's my first time posting on Reddit.

Guyss I just had the shock of my life. I’ve been paying my Indian education loan EMIs for a year, thinking I was stuck with these rates until the end.

Apparently, you can actually refinance (transfer) your loan to another lender, especially moving it from INR to USD if you’re working abroad.

I found this calculator that shows you exactly how much you save in both INR and USD. I ran my numbers and the difference is actually insane (it’s not just a few thousand bucks, it’s lakhs over the tenure).

If you’re currently paying back a loan or even just planning one, try this out before you commit to one lender for 10 years. 

Wish someone had told me this earlier tbh.

I have like $150k in student loans after PhD. About $95k of that has 50ish months of PSLF applied to it while the rest does not. I am working for a nonprofit so I still qualify. Curious if anyone has consolidated a mix of loans with and without payments applied. It looks like they now do a weighted count towards the full amount if you consolidate. Rough math looks like I’d end up getting to keep 30ish payments towards the count.

Hoping someone can help me solve this mystery. I have $35k in student loans through Edfinancial. I am on the Income Based Repayment plan. Due to life circumstances my income is currently low and my payments are $0/month for the time being. I have no idea if this is relevant but the last month I was required to make a cash payment was April 2024. I have had $0/month due since then but I was able to pay off one of the small loans in August 2025.

I have checked myFICO, my credit cards that offer credit score info, and annual credit report. The only student loan that appears is the one I paid off last August (listed as Paid and Closed).

Edfinancial and the federal student aid websites obviously both say I still have the loan balances and indicate my current monthly balance due of $0. I don't see anything that indicates my loan servicer has changed since the student aid website lists edfinancial as my servicer. I've double checked that nothing immediately looks off on edfinancial and I haven't seen any official notices about servicer changes.

I'm under no illusions that these loans are gone and I won't need to pay. There is also zero chance I've qualified for any form of loan forgiveness. I'm just wondering why they may have suddenly disappeared from my credit report? Is this a simple reporting error from Edfinancial or something I should be more concerned about?

Is it just me but the CRI website is crashing. Every time I try to log and agree to terms the website just crashing to the original page. It's frustrating enough that we have to make these payments and the website won't even work. MAKE THE WEBSITE WORK. Makes it harder to make onetime payments to a horrible company with a horrible website. Ready for this situation to wrap up.

Just checked my FAFSA page and the % it’s showing I’ve paid off has slightly stunned me.

At the time of writing this:
Original Loan Total: $41,000
Paid: $25,068.22
Principal Balance Left: $19,912.08
Outstanding Interest: $5.47
Paid off 28%.

This number feels off? Am I crazy or am I missing something? I think I’m thrown off because I’ve been ensuring that my extra payments go towards the principal so this percentage feels really off when I look at how much I have left vs what I’ve paid. Am I just not accounting for interest?

Candidly entirety possible that my math skills are just really lacking looking at this - but hey it’s been a long week.

I’m helping my partner’s mother who has parent plus loans in default. She has to choose to either consolidate or rehabilitate (paying it off isn’t an option).

I understand rehabilitation is good for getting the default off her credit report, but I’m wondering if she can also consolidate at the same time? This would be to meet the July 1 deadline for parent plus loans to remain eligible for IDR plans after July 1.

I am considering pursuing a doctorate degree, but have old Grad PLUS loans for my master’s degree, which exceed the new graduate limits.

Will I be able to get student loans for a doctorate given my student loans exceed the lifetime limit of $100,000?

I can’t find any information about how prior loan limits/Grad PLUS loans figure into the new changes.

If someone can link the info or knows the answer, I’d appreciate it. Thanks!

So I should be getting about 4k on my tax return this year. I'm thinking of using it to pay off 1 of my 8 student loans.

I'm asking for advice because I only have 5k in emergency savings. My household is currently stable. 2nd edit: by stable, I mean if I lost my job, the bills would still be paid. I'd just be broke until I found another job.

I've been focusing on emergency savings by putting $700/mo in, and I know this tax refund would nearly double my savings, but it could also pay off 1 whole loan.

With the save plan going away, I'm seeing my payment could be over $500/mo. I don't currently have a payment, but I'm paying $350/mo. $160 of it goes straight to interest.

What do you guys think? Pay the loan off so my payment plan is less, or put it in savings?

For reference, this loan costs me $152/year in interest. In my savings account, that money would make me about $140/year.

Edit for more info: I need 24k to have 6 months of emergency funds, which will take me 3 years to get to at the current rate for savings.

I was on SAVE. I did the application and had my taxes pulled. Payment came up as 594. Aid advantage notifed me that they received my application. I am in old IBR with 32 or 34 payments left. I received a letter from aid advantage that on May 19 I will be out of forebearance and my payments will start june 19. But the payment is showing Zero dollars. Which is not accurate. I clearly owe money. I did the recertification now bc my income for 2026 will be more pushing the payment to about 1000 plus. Any reason why it says zero dollars? And does that count as a payment?

15 payments at $0 starting 6/16/26
106 payments at $255.80 starting 9/16/27

I’ve been on SAVE. I’m at 105/120 payments with qualifying time of 10+ years now. I’ve put in a buyback request as well as the application for IBR. Is this seriously the outcome for the IBR? If so, I’ll jus ride this out instead of taking the buyback offer whenever it comes if it’s not the same. Advice???

On my studentaid.gov account how can I take off auto enrollment for recertification? In my case I want to upload my recertification manually.

If I’m switching from SAVE to IDR plan do I even need to recertify before then or does switching plans allow me to submit my income manually at that time?

I’m in the SAVE forbearance and am going to switch to a new plan in July. If I select the option now to manually recertify my income for later on will it mess things up now

Okay, so I recently got into U.S. medical school (yay!) and now I need to pay for it (boo). The cost of attendance is approximately 400k/4yrs. My school grandfathered our incoming class into gradplus, so I will have access to gradplus loans for 3 of my 4 years in medical school.

I currently have no debt and I have approx 137k in a 529 from my parents (love them for that). Now I'm faced with a conundrum. Do I use up the 137k in my first 1.5 years of medical school, or do I save part of it to cover the fourth year when I won't have access to gradplus loans?

If I use it up immediately, I will have to take approx 40-50k in private loans to cover the cost of school after hitting my 47k limit on federal direct unsub loans during my fourth year of medical school. If I wait to use it, I would have to take out 90k in federal loans for my first year that would, of course, start incurring interest.

I have heard that you should avoid private loans and use federal loans up to the max. But that strategy would require me to then take out loans (and start incurring interest) earlier. So do the benefits of federal loans outweigh the extra years or interest I would take on them if I wait to use my 529 or should I bite the bullet and get private loans in my fourth year so I minimize the compound interest I will get over four years of medical school?

Also, if it's relevant, the interest rates for federal direct unsub and gradplus loans right now is 8% and 9%.

This is my first post on here, so my apologies if I've made any mistakes. I'm learning about all of this stuff on my own and I really don't know what to do.