How to Get Help Paying Student Loans
College graduates who have tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt often have trouble paying back their loans. This is especially true for graduates who are unable to find work at the pay level they anticipated when they took out their loans. If your student loan payments are more than you can handle, seek help immediately through your lender. Because student loan payments appear on your credit report, missing payments can influence your ability to get credit in the future.
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Instructions
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Call your student loan company as soon as you begin to have difficulty making payments on your student loans. You will do the least damage to your credit if you work something out before missing a payment.
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Change the repayment plan on your student loans. Federal student loans have a number of options, including extended repayment, income-based repayment and income-contingent repayment. All of these options will lower your monthly payments, although you will likely pay more in interest over the repayment period.
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Apply for a deferment if you are currently a student, unemployed, in active duty military or experiencing severe economic hardship. A deferment allows you to stop making payments on your loan for a while. In addition, if your loans were subsidized while you were in school, they will be subsidized during deferment as well.
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Track your expenditures and cut spending in unnecessary areas, such as eating out, entertainment, travel and clothing purchases. This will help free up more of your income so that you can put it toward your student loan payments.
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Apply for a forbearance if you do not qualify for a deferment and are unable to make the lowest monthly payment possible on any of the repayment plans. Forbearance, like deferment, allows you to stop making payments for a time. However, interest accrues on your loan during forbearance, which will increase the amount you owe.
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Consolidate private loans into a loan with a lower interest rate or longer repayment period. Making either of these changes will lower your monthly payment. Some private loans do not allow you to change your payment plan, apply for deferment or apply for forbearance, so consolidation may be the only way to change the payment amount.
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