Hopefully you’ve read our page on planning for student loan repayment and are well prepared to tackle your repayment with a complete list of your outstanding student loans and a repayment budget. Your next step is to familiarize yourself with all of the different student loan management options so you can start making payments.
Types of Repayment Plans
There are many repayment plans available and they are split into two main categories, fixed payment repayment plans and income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. The traditional repayment plans have fixed monthly payments based on the length of repayment time, while the IDR plans base your monthly payment on your income, making payments more flexible depending on what you earn. IDR plans also discharge any remaining loan balance after 20–30 years of qualifying payments. You can click on the repayment categories below to get an overview of the different plans in each category. Additional information is available here.
Loan Forgiveness
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) is a program that forgives the remaining loan balance after just 10 years of qualifying payments while working in eligible public service employment. All income-driven repayment plans qualify for PSLF. This means that if you plan to work in public service for at least 10 years, you can take advantage of lower monthly payments under an income-driven plan and still receive loan forgiveness after 10 years through PSLF. You can find more information about PSLF eligibility requirements and the application process here.
Federal Loan Consolidation
Federal Loan Consolidation allows you to combine multiple federal student loans into one loan. Because all of your federal law school loans are already with the same loan servicer, you are not required to consolidate them. However, there are certain situations where consolidation may still be beneficial. Below are a few examples of when consolidating your loans might make sense.
- You borrowed loans before 2010 under the FFEL program and need to move them into the Direct Loan Program to qualify for an IDR plan and/or PSLF.
- You have federal loans with different loan servicers, and you want to simplify your loan repayment into one monthly bill.
- You need to rehabilitate a delinquent loan.
When you consolidate your loans, the interest on the new loan will be the weighted average of the loans you included in the consolidation and will be fixed for the life of the loan. More information on consolidating your federal student loans can be found here.
Loan Deferment and Forbearance
There may be times when you are not able, or are not required, to make payments on your loans. Both a deferment and forbearance allow you to postpone or temporarily reduce your loan payment. These benefits are available to you if due to certain circumstances you cannot afford to make any payments or what you can afford to pay is less than the lowest payment required under any repayment plan. Information regarding the deferment and forbearance types and their application process can be found here.