Immediate strategy on student debt

Cancel Student Debt and win #CollegeForAll
#1

Hi,

My name is Jasveen and I have $60,000 in federal student loans managed by Great Lakes. What immediate strategy is recommended for when the payments start up in January? For instance, should I opt for forbearance, an income based repayment plan or something else?

Also, Biden changed the rules of PSLF so that you on apply your past payments to it retroactively, even if you were not on income based repayment plan. I had not applied to PSLF because I worked at non-American NGOs for a couple years. Is this method recommended?

I’m a new member and I’m just looking to understand what is the plan for January in terms of actual repayment/non payment. I was not able to find any information on this on the website. Thanks!

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#2

Hello,
I would do income based, so payments can be a bit manageable. I’ve done forbearance so many times, it came back to bite me in butt due to interest it’s not worth doing or do the 6 month deferment due to economic hardship it will give you time to brainstorm some and not inflate your interest.
If the payments are still not to your favor, i suggest consolidation, you’ll be forgiven after 25 years even if the entire sum isn’t paid off. This the strategy i am leaning towards, but i want to wait and see what happens in January , i have a gut feeling this useless Biden administration will cave eventually in 2022 and forgive debt due to this crappy economy.

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#3

I have the same question and even more student debt, managed for now by FedLoan. You may have done this already, but I used this calculator to estimate what my monthly payments will be under different plans: Federal Student Aid.

The PSLF application may be worth a try. The form asks if your employer is tax-exempt under Section 501©(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). It also asks if your employer is a not-for-profit organization that is NOT tax-exempt under Section 501©(3). If you answer no to both, your employer does not qualify, but if the NGOs you worked for were non-profit organizations, it could work. I enrolled in PLSF and have gotten messages from the Dept of Ed saying that they are experiencing really long delays in processing new PLSF forms and applying the rule change to each account.

Really hoping student debt will be forgiven in 2022.