Hi, new here and just trying to figure out what to do. I am currently at the end of forgiveness programs offered by discovery student loans. I have been on them now for a year and a half due to the fact that my money payments started out as $900 something 6 months after graduating directly into the Pandemic (May 2020). The total of my discovery student loans are $89,748 without out interest. I was very young and without help when I took on these loans so my interest rate is an 11% which takes my loan to over $100,000 if paid long term. I have been paying on interest for the past year and a half to avoid from paying the full monthly total, as I still don’t make enough money to pay it. My new monthly payment due now are $1,013 due 6/6/22 and they have just ensured me that there are no more programs to offer me. I have even tried to reconsolidate/ refinance my loan and was denied approval from not only discover but also 5 different places, due to my credit not being high enough for approval. I just don’t get it. How do you let someone take out these loans with limited credit and them when they actually have some type of credit beyond atleast a 600 you deny they from reconsolidating and refinancing. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s a trap. I just don’t know what else to do at this point. At this point they are going to have to start impacting my credit even more because I can’t make payments which messes up my refinancing chances even more. So I’m here as a cry for help.
Commenting because I’m in a similar situation, and it SUCKS! I didn’t have the financial literacy, stability, or resources to game student loans like some of the rich people I went to college with, and am now saddled with six figures of debt to Discover!
It’s an absolutely predatory system, it feels like you’re being punished for wanting to improve your life. I have no hope of paying off my student loans. I do have hope that like enough collective action and education can change the situation for good-- But IDK, it’s really difficult to stay optimistic when you’re racking up debt, your family is racking up debt, and you’re stressed out over loans you probably signed at 18-20ish years old. Plus there’s a very vocal group of people that are treating it as a personal responsibility issue instead of an abusive policy choice. I just wish I could offer anything other than solidarity 
.
File a DTR (defense to repayment) and if you wish you can send them a detailed account of why this is unfair, and they might put it into administrative DTR. I retired from teaching in 2016 and my income went down by 2/3, so my husband and I refinanced to try to get the income based payment. They said we weren’t eligible. So our payments were to be $1100/mo and that just covered interest. There was NO way we could pay it. Fortunately covid put everything on hold. Somewhere along the line - after writing to everyone we could think of; senators, congressmen, our NY AGs office, the President, our DTR was turned into an administrative DTR and the new date I just discovered online to begin payments is now March 2025. Wow! Here’s what I believe is going to happen. The truth is the Ed dept has never even looked into anyone’s student loan repayments. It is totally corrupt and inexcusable. There are now millions of students in default and I believe, President Biden is going to forgive all student debt. He already has forgiven Corinthian students, but he will do all because this will give him millions of students who will then vote for him in the next election. So you need to STOP paying, stop trying to be a good citizen and put it on hold. Yes the interest increases, it’s scary, but the relief you will feel at not having to suck $1000 out of your income for a corrupt system will be worth it. Good luck!
I’m not sure mine will be impacted by what Biden does since I have independent discovery student loans. I have also been denied from 5 different consolidation programs due to my credit score and income not being the easiest to validate since I’m a server. With that being said, I have not been paying them and I am at the end of exhausting all the programs that defer them. So now it’s going to mess my credit up even more. Should I file bankruptcy? When you owe after interest $127,000 in loans and your monthly payments are over $1000 is there even a point in paying them if you know you’ll never be able to pay them off? Is filing bankruptcy something worth doing in my case? Has anyone tried this?
Look up consumerfinance.gov- CFPB. There is an article that may help guide you, Busting myths about bankruptcy and private student loans. Excellent information & a US government website.
I filed bankruptcy but it did not clear my loan debt. I see now, that there is a way to claim bankruptcy on school loans. Go to the Fed Loan website. It gives you a step by step on what to do. Even with bankruptcy, I was able to rebuild my credit, by a house with 2% interest, a car with 4% interest. This is my 4th year into my bankruptcy.
Sparky Abraham, from debt collective, contacted me about three weeks ago
I answered some questions he sent me, i have not heard back from him