r/StudentLoans

have been on paye since 2013, husband and i file separately. income hasnt changed. did have another baby totalling 2 kids who i claim is the only change. I recertified in April although it wasnt due to recertify till end of june. then it said my plan was IDR and my payment plan was same. but if you look at schedule my payment went up to 3505 a month in a month. i called in may they told me to recertify. so i did and got same letter a week later. i called and they said it was just if i didnt recertify and the standard payment plan. but i just got an email that saids i have 3505 due at end of month. what is going on???!? obviously calling tomorrow but i am freaking out.

i make 150k, file separately and have 370k loan balance

I graduate in May 2027 with a Neuroscience degree. I was planning on applying to medical school but it seems really bad to let the interest accrue while i'm essentially unemployed for 4 years.

My dad encouraged me to apply ED to a private school and promised me he could pay out of pocket (he's a high earning physician). I was willing to go to a state school but I took his word. At the end of my first year I received an email from Sallie Mae that said my parents were applying for loans in my name and my dad tells me he can't pay tuition — I was really upset but went along with it thinking it was a temporary thing. At this point I should've transferred to a state school and found a way out but I didnt and that's my fault.

Numbers wise it is nasty:
12k balance at 12% variable interest rate
102k balance at 14% variable interest rate
87k balance at 15% fixed interest rate

I am interning as a research coordinator until December and will have a decent amount of professional experience by the time I graduate, but i'll probably only make like 60k in my gap years before trying for medical school or PA school which im leaning towards since it's 2 years. Or I could try to work up towards a higher paying administrative role in research or something adjacent instead of paying for another degree.

Is it literally over for me and will I be a slave for the rest of my life? I want to move in with my boyfriend after graduation but now I feel like i'll have to live at home and work with my head down forever.

I apologize for not even asking for concrete advice I just don't even know what approach to take to tackle this.

As the title suggests, I am not sure what to do. I gave birth to my son on 12/7. The AGI for my husband and I is $102,000 (which is less than last year, $102,293). My husband filed for unemployment from December until May, it wasn’t his fault just terrible timing. I was on maternity leave for six months, which was difficult as my maternity leave checks had to pay for our families health insurance. My work lets us take the time off, but it doesn’t cover health insurance.

In short, even with my husband back at work and doing my part as well, I genuinely do not have $500 a month of extra income and I don’t understand why my monthly payments jumped so significantly when our income is lower.

My rectification date is 7/12, so less than a week away. I’m on the PAYE plan with PSLF since I work for a nonprofit, but even lowest payment option is $500 for me.

I would appreciate any advice, thank you. I’m trying not to spiral here.

Edit: the reason is because we filed jointly. Thank you to everyone who offered advice.

Just received several emails from Mohela. One reminding me to renew my IBR plan, as the deadline to recertify is approaching, and then two stating “correspondence processing delay”.

Is this actually it? They have 90 business days to process my IBR renewal that I manually uploaded? which is nearly 6 months actual time. and in the meantime, my payments are going to skyrocket and payments remain due and in force? no forbearance, nothing?

The email reads exactly like that.

I submitted my documents on time, and I’m being punished for their lack of accountability.

After the SAVE debacle, I discovered I’m closer to general loan forgiveness than PSLF. I decided to go back into repayment and put in for IBR. They appear to have put me on the standard repayment plan for 10 years. I’ve requested repeatedly to have my payment and discharge date recalculated and MOHELA has been a brick wall either not responding or sending my pro forma communications that don’t track with my issues. I’ve contacted studentaid.gov and asked for recalculation of my general loan forgiveness and they denied it and denied even calling me as requested. I filed a complaint with the CFPB and waiting to see if anything happens with that.

But I’m thinking another step I could take is to apply for loan consolidation with a private company to get some sort of final accounting for payments made and what’s actually left on my loan (bc I’m pretty sure that after 25 years of paying on loans, I’ve paid more than $20k). I should have 3 yrs or less making payments under general loan forgiveness, but I also cannot make the payments they’re asking me to make without defaulting. I also find it crazy that I can’t pay off two of the smaller loans in order to reduce my payment amount. Lastly, my fixed rate govt loans have now increased inexplicably, and it’s so high that I can’t imagine not being able to find a lower rate.

I’m posting for thoughts about this plan. Any feedback or other options you’ve considered? I’m losing my mind over and willing to consider anything.

Give me your best side hustles

I uploaded my IBR Recert and tax transcript a week and a half ago, and have screenshots that the upload was successful and can see the documents in the “ documents you sent us section”.

However, the deadline to recertify is coming up in a few weeks, and they have not sent me anything that they’ve received or processed.

What protections do I have from the predictable email that will follow that I failed to recertify my plan?

I don’t really have time to play games waiting on hold for 6 hours, and want to be able to secure proof that was application was submitted with proper documentation before the deadline

My spouse and I moved to Canada a few years ago for our careers. We have a young child and although we are US citizens, we are close to permanent residency, plan to purchase a home, and do not plan to return to US to live for at least a decade or so. I have about 200k in debt and my spouse 35k. I went on SAVE, she did not and still on IBR, but we are both in forbearance until September.

When we have filed our taxes since 2023, we have chosen the FEIE which puts our AGI at 0 (choosing foreign tax credit puts our AGI at a little over 200k).

One question is which option RAP or IBR or some other plan would be best for us if we just want the lower monthly payment and don’t plan on returning to US.

The second question concerns which AGI will they consider for monthly payments? I don’t mind paying monthly, but the calculations I was getting for RAP was at $1600 a month, which is far too much for us since we hope to purchase a reasonable home here. But if I enter 0 for my AGI it would be at $10 a month? Since we’ve filed FEIE for last two years at 0 AGI is that what they will continue to look at in determining monthly payment? Or will they look at the potential AGI of 200k (which is based on our combined income)?

Thanks for any advice and clarification!

EDIT:

I finally looked on FSA to apply for a new IDR. They have both my spouse’s and my tax files on record I guess since they calculated it quickly. However, I was offered only 2 options. The standard plan which has monthly at $1200+ or the ICR, the monthly is at $0 and “total to be paid” at $0, with a disbursement of $340k on 2035. I am even more confused now since I know ICR is going to be eliminated in 2028, but I am even more confused by the $0 “total to be paid.” I am, however, glad that the monthly is $0. Any one else get something similar when trying to apply to a SAVE alternative?

I’m very confused. I received the following email from Mohela.

“A recent legal settlement ended the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, and it is no longer available to borrowers. As a result of the settlement, MOHELA was directed by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to deny all SAVE Plan applications. Visit StudentAid.gov/courtactions for more information about the settlement.

MOHELA records show that you submitted an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan application and requested either
the SAVE Plan or
the SAVE Plan and another plan.
You must now select a new repayment plan. If you're not currently enrolled in the SAVE Plan and don't submit a new application for a different repayment plan within 90 days, your SAVE forbearance will end and you will be required to resume payments on the plan you were on before you applied for SAVE. If you're currently enrolled in the SAVE Plan, you will be placed on either the Standard Repayment Plan or the Tiered Standard Plan, depending on your circumstances.”

I’d love to go back in time and unconsolidate my loans-they were FFELs and my largest had a 2.25% interest rate. But I followed the advice I was given and consolidated in 2022 for the myriad SAVE benefits that are…no longer in existence, lost two years towards repayment/forgiveness, and have now been thrust into this fresh hell. I haven’t applied for a new plan, nor have I done anything like recertify (though I need to). I’ve received no other notices from MOHELA, just this one, and I don’t know what it means. Any help would be most welcome.

Hi everyone! I have approximately $182,000 in federal student loans with an average interest rate of 5.5%. My estimated monthly payment is about $490 under IDR and $550 under RAP. My income is expected to increase this year, and my goal is to pay off the entire balance in a lump sum by the end of June next year.
Would it make sense to enroll in RAP to take advantage of the interest subsidy while keeping the funds I plan to use for repayment in a high-yield savings account until then? Is there any chance I will have to pay back all the interest subsidy received over the course of this coming year by making a one lump sum payment? Or is there a better strategy I should consider? Thank you.

Sooo I was one of the thousands conned by DeVry University. I had applied for the Borrower’s Defense fund 4 years ago and nothing ever changed on the account. I owed $154k in public loans. I am still not making half that annually.

So due to the court ruling this past April against the Dept. of Education, they finally paid off my loans under the Student Borrower’s Defense. It’s been wiped clean and no taxes on it, along with returning all my payments from the years past. I’m not sure how much is going to be returned yet, or how long that will take, but I’m so happy I did it!

For those of you out there that are going through this, it’s happening. Keep an eye on it! And for those in a similar situation, apply for it! Hopefully things will go
In your favor!

Does anyone know if schools are always / sometimes / never notified of Borrowers Defense applications?

Can you cancel an application?

I worked and studied at a university. Took out $10k of loans while studying and working at this school. I submitted borrowers defense applications for two other schools and both were approved. At the time I hadn’t applied for the loans from the school I worked at even though it had been on the list of schools where your loans would be automatically cleared. Because I work for that school and didn’t want any issues.

I was so very certain that I was going to leave my employer for an international move and so I decided why not apply for borrowers defense and see if I can get the rest of my loans discharged. Then, I decided not to move and now I’m afraid they’ve notified the school (my employer) and wonder what may come of that.

My application is now in review as of 5/2026. Submitted around 5/2025.

Looking for clarification that Google searching doesn't seem to be helping me with, and I'm not sure if it's a search query that's not phrased correctly, or just a general misunderstanding that is not clicking with my brain.

Switched from a PAYE to RAP student loan repayment, pushing the forgiveness date to 2042, but then has a "discharge amount" of over $5,000 that seems to be tacked on. If the loans are forgiven after 30 years, what is this discharge cost? Google makes it seem like that's the amount being forgiven, but it was added to the overall amount of monies to be paid over the remaining length of the loan, bringing the total from around $65k to over $70k.

After ignoring the DOE’s aggressive correspondence to change my payment plan I have finally received an email directly from Aidvantage. But It’s giving me pause because the wording is very confusing.

A little backstory, Aidvantage told me on 4/12/24 that I didn’t need to recertify my IDR plan until 8/2025. I recertified anyway on 11/2024 because I was afraid I’d forget.

On the email is says “You must now select a new repayment plan. If you're not currently enrolled in the SAVE Plan…”

And my loan status says:
Loan Status
Administrative Forbearance-Ends 10/31/2028
Repayment Plan
Saving on a Valuable Education - Ends 05/28/2029
Repayment Start Date
06/13/2013
Estimated Payoff Date
05/28/2039

Based on the email and status of my loans it seems like I can stay in my plan until 2029. What do you think? 🤔

Hi all, longtime lurker, first time poster who's seen a lot of people in a similar situation. I made the mistake of freaking out about the end of SAVE deadline and applied through StudentAid for the IBR plan mid-June. It pulled in my tax information, since I'm still opted in from when I switched plans in 2023, and showed that my monthly payment was expected to be 50 dollars (which I now know is a glitch). I got the first notice from MOHELA that my payments were going to be $0 from July 2026 to October 2027, and then go up to $741 then. I did the whole freak out thing, then realized this was a stupid generic payment schedule change, since the IDR application still hadn't processed.

Then, last week, I got an email from MOHELA notifying me that my IDR application had processed and I had a new payment schedule - and suddenly now I owe the $741 beginning at the end of THIS month. The letter does say "IBR" at the top, not the generic IDR. It also has me making payments over 10 years, which seems like I was placed in the standard plan.

For context, I owe $68,361 total, a combination of undergrad and grad. AGI from 2025 taxes is $41,416, filing single with no dependents. When I went back to FSA and used the calculator again, it showed that my IBR payment would be just over $200, and RAP was even lower.

Should I call MOHELA and ask them to verify their calculation, or should I just reapply for IBR through FSA? Do I have to specifically ask for the administrative forbearance, or will it go into affect if I have them recalculate?

I have enough in savings to cover this month's payment if it comes to that, but I don't know how I will manage in the future. I have a decent salary, but after taxes, insurance, and paying into pension, I only bring home about a third of that. I also have significant medical bills from managing a chronic condition and my rent just recently went up. I also have a credit card payment every month from when I ran up my balance during the pandemic (as a graduate student assistant I didn't qualify for unemployment assistance). I also don't have a car, and was hoping to be able to get one this coming year (I live in an area that's very car-oriented and hard to get around without one, as public transit is unreliable), but with this new payment there's no way I would be able to afford another monthly payment and gas, insurance, etc. I'm also realizing that I will most likely never buy a house, or at least have my own apartment without a roommate. I just feel stuck, and this feels like being kicked repeatedly when so many things in my life are already going to shit.

ETA: When logging into my FSA account, it still shows the IBR application as "In Review," and my loan dashboard shows that I'm in SAVE with a recertification date of September 2027. It also says Enrollment Start as June 8, 2026, which is when I submitted the IBR application??? None of this makes sense.

I have been ignoring the emails from Department of Education about moving off SAVE to another plan. My balance is about $4,000. From what I read on their site, I will be placed on the standard repayment plan with a low monthly payment of $50. Does anyone else plan to just ride this out as long as possible?

I have Nelnet. I was on the SAVE plan. My account still says I am on forbearance and my next payment isnt due until 11/2028.

I am still not quite understanding what is happening.

Can someone please explain this to me like I'm 5?

Thank you. :)

I (23) made my last student loan payment yesterday. I’m still in my grace period as I just graduated 6 months ago. I went to a very affordable college to get mi bachelors degree. I commuted and didn’t have any housing or meal plan which saved me a lot of money. While in school, I didn’t take out any loans my last two years and paid my balance for the year right out of pocket. I have always been good at managing my money and saved up what I could to pay it off. My goal was to be debt free before my grace period ended because I never wanted to drown in student debt my whole life. I also handled my highest interest rates first. I was smart when I took out any loans. I didn’t have a loan higher than 6.5% interest rate. I paid everything in full before my monthly payments started because i knew this was the only point in my life where I will this much flexibility with my money and it save me a lot of money if I pay it now years down the line.

So I have $398,000 in federal loans thanks to medical school...

I just finished residency and was hoping to finish paying this off in the next 3 years somehow. I'd anticipate my salary to be between 250-300k, maybe a tad more. Besides signing up for the RAP plan and budgeting, is there anything else you would recommend for trying to accelerate this?

I have alot of accured interest at the moment. my income is low enough that my payments might not cover all the interest. my utilmate goal is to pay off my loans eventually and will be making extra payments when possible.