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7 Effective Ways to Lower Your Student Loan Payments
Nobody takes out student loans expecting to have trouble repaying them. But once the realities of post-college life set in, many borrowers do find that keeping up on payments is a struggle.
In fact, more Americans are burdened by student loan debt than ever, with a delinquency rate of 11.2%. And that doesn't include many more who are barely keeping up.
Student loan payments can become unmanageable for a number of reasons: a job loss, pay cut, unexpected expense or simply too much student loan debt to begin with. If you're struggling to make your payments, know that missing them can lead to disastrous consequences for your finances. (You can see how your student loans are affecting your credit by viewing two of your free credit scores on Credit.com.)
Fortunately, there are several ways to get your payments lowered to a more manageable amount. Here are seven ways you can pay less on your student loans each month.
1. Income-Driven Repayment Plans
For federal student loans, income-driven repayment (IDR) plans can be a smart way to manage student loans. There are currently four IDR plans available for federal student loans:
Income-Based Repayment (IBR)
Pay As You Earn (PAYE)
Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE)
Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR)
Borrowers who enroll in income-driven repayment have their student loan payments lowered to a percentage of their income — 10 to 20%, depending on the plan. Payments can even be as low as $0 under IDR.
Some income-driven repayment plans also take local living costs into consideration when calculating the lower payment. This gives extra relief to payers in pricey cities.
Income-driven plans also offer student loan forgiveness on any remaining balance after 20 to 25 years of loan payments.
To enroll in an income-driven repayment plan, contact your federal student loan servicer. They can discuss your options with you and give you the correct forms to apply for IDR.
2. Student Loan Refinancing
If you have private student loans, one of the only ways to lower payments is to refinance.
By refinancing, you replace your old student loan(s) with a new one through a private student loan refinancing lender. This allows you to lower your monthly payments by getting a lower interest rate, extending the repayment period, or both.
For borrowers who have older federal loans with high interest rates (such as Grad or Parent PLUS loans), it can be worth it to refinance to lower interest rates. Keep in mind you will lose federal benefits, like access to IDR, if you refinance with a private lender. Extending the repayment period can also result in lower monthly payments, but might end up costing more in interest over time.
If you're not sure if student loan refinancing could benefit you, shop around and get some rate estimates from private student loan companies. Most will perform a soft credit check to pre-qualify you, which won't affect your credit.
3. Student Loan Repayment Assistance Programs
Another option to manage student loan payments is to get help through a student loan repayment assistance program (LRAP). This is free help with your student loans. Many states, government agencies, nonprofits and other organizations offer student loan assistance, usually as a way to attract qualified employees.
This student loan repayment assistance tool can help you filter LRAPs by your occupation, state and type of assistance. It's worth checking to see if you can get free help with your student loans.
4. Deferment or Forbearance
If you need a break from your student loan payments altogether, deferment and forbearance can help by pausing payments.
Deferment can be a good option for federal student loans. It can be granted for disability, unemployment, financial hardship, a return to college or military service. Subsidized student loans won't accrue interest while in deferment.
Forbearance can also be granted to pause student loan payments. However, all student loans will continue to accrue interest while in forbearance.
With either option, make sure you understand how your loans will accrue interest. If necessary, consider making interest-only payments so your balance doesn't grow to be bigger than when you started.
5. Graduated Repayment Plan
A graduated repayment plan can help set payments low to start with, then increase every two years (hopefully as your income also rises) over 10 years.
This can be a good fit if you can't afford full student loan payments now — but you expect to be able to afford to pay more later. If you want to stick to paying student loans off in 10 years, a graduated repayment plan can help you do it.
6. Extended Repayment Plan
The standard student loan repayment schedule is 10 years. But if you stretch your student loan repayment out over more time, this will lower the amount you pay each month.
The extended repayment plan can help you do this by extending repayment to up to 25 years, with either fixed or graduated payments. You'll need to have more than $30,000 in student loans to get on the extended repayment plan.
This can be a good option if you want to extend your repayment schedule to between 10 to 20 years. However, if you expect to be repaying student loans for 20 or more years, the forgiveness that comes with IDR plans could make those a better option. Again, extending the repayment period can also cost you more in interest over time, so consider this option carefully.
7. Consolidate Federal Student Loans
Federal student loan consolidation combines federal student loans into a single Direct Consolidation Loan. The new interest rate is a weighted average of the previous rates on your consolidated loans.
Consolidating also gives you the option to choose a repayment period of at least 10 years and up to 30 years, which can greatly lower your monthly payments. Some other repayment plans might also require you to consolidate federal student loans to make them eligible for participation.
Keep in mind that unlike refinancing, federal consolidation does not result in a lower interest rate or savings of any kind. It can, however, simplify the repayment process and help open up monthly cash flow with lower payments.
Getting Student Loans Under Control
There are several ways to manage both private and federal student loans. With these options to lower student loan payments, there's no reason to keep struggling every month.
Remember, you owe it to yourself and your financial health to investigate your student debt repayment choices and move forward with the right one.
More From Credit.com:
Repayment Options for Student Loans
Paying Off Your Student Loans With Forgiveness Programs & Beyond
