Are you struggling with your student loan? When you are financially exhausted, we know that effects on your health and quality of life. If you have financial challenges with your debts, don’t panic! We will guide you and provide possible solutions such as student loan forgiveness programs which may assist you to lower, or even get rid of your payments. What is Student Loan Forgiveness? Student debt has been extended its maximum all-time level in the US. According to statistic reports, currently, more than 40 mln. people have average 29.000 $ debt balance. With constantly increasing loans, students and graduates feel hopeless. Thus, they have no idea how to lower their payment burden.
Of course, it would be a dream comes true, if your student debt account is eliminated. In reality, there are some options to realize it. Student Loan Forgiveness simply, means that you are not obliged to repay your debt anymore. Under certain conditions, your educational loan could be forgiven, canceled or discharged fully or partially by the Federal Government.
As a student you can earn Student Loan Forgiveness in 2 possible ways: working in the public sector and making income-based payment. Each way has different structures, advantages, and limits. Besides these qualifications, you can get loan forgiveness for only student debt (Mortgages, personal and car loans, credit cards are not included).
What qualifies you for student loan forgiveness?
There are some factors which your eligibility depends on. These can be the type of student loan and the type of industry you work in. One of the criteria is that you are not allowed to have a loan in default. So they should have been unresolved for more than 9 months. Despite, there is no forgiveness offered by a private company, nevertheless a certain group of lenders could take short-term interest cutting while you face a challenge to pay your loan. Actually, there are different sort of forgiveness program and each of them has various requirements. The percentage of forgiveness you can receive varies the program you apply. By depending on the situation, you can even earn 100% loan forgiveness. Our professional experts may assist you to find out the most appropriate forgiveness program and answer all your questions.
The Top Student Loan Forgiveness Program
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF) offers full loan forgiveness which is intended for people who work in the public service sector or non-commercial organizations. Main preferred areas are military service, volunteer jobs or medical fields. This program allows eliminating your debt after 10 years or 120 payments. Please note that employers who work in labor unions, partisan political organizations, a commercial organization (including non-profit government contractor) are not qualified.
Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program allows you to be forgiven of up to 17,500$ on your Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans, if you work as a highly qualified teacher (which means having a bachelor degree and full state certification as a teacher) in low-income educational agencies and schools at least 5 years.
Disability Discharge program lets you avoid payment of William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program loan, a Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program loan, or a Federal Perkins Loan or to complete a TEACH Grant service obligation if you have totally or permanently disabled. To apply for the program you must submit the documentation proving you are meeting all the requirements of total disability.
Bankruptcy and Undue Hardship Student Loan Discharge
The program will discharge your student loan in case if you apply the court to compile action about bankruptcy in order to find undue hardship of your situation. To get forgiveness, you should declare chapter 7 and chapter 13 about bankruptcy which is the adversary proceeding of a bankruptcy court.
Student Loan Interest Forgiveness - The loan will be released if your relative or other delegate gives the credit servicer adequate documentation of your or parent’s death. Satisfactory documentation incorporates a unique passing testament, an affirmed duplicate of the dying declaration, or an exact and complete photocopy of one of those records.
Military College Loan Repayment Program (MCLRP) – allows you postpone of payments on your student loan while during the period of serving military duty. You may be eligible for a loan repayment program that eliminates certain parts or all of your student debt by depending on the branch of the military you serve. To get a military-related postponement, you have to give documentation demonstrating that you have enrolled or that you have joined with the National Guard.
Student Loan Repayment Plan
It is significant to determine the repayment method which is optimum in terms of your financial circumstance. Despite each of these methods has advantages and disadvantages, we recommend to study every one of these repayment plans in order to make a decision wisely from a beneficial standpoint.
There are the following plans:
- Income-based repayment plans, designed to help graduates who are having trouble making payments within the standard 10-year time frame. Besides, include forgiveness for borrowers not in the public sector after a certain period of time. These plans intended to assist graduates who face problems to pay their loan during standard 10 years duration and forgiveness borrowers who don’t work in the public sphere after a period of time.
- Income-Contingent Repayment Plan (ICR)- monthly payment will be smaller than both 20% of discretionary income and fixed amount of payment 12 years plan.
- Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) – is the most modern version of income-based payment which takes 10% of your discretionary income (gross income – taxes – all compelled payments). And it is recalculated each year based on updated salary and the number of family members.
- Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan (PAYE) - monthly payment will cover 10% of discretionary income. However, it will not exceed the amount if you would have paid with 10-year standard repayment. And it is recalculated each year based on updated salary and the number of family members.
What happens if you don’t pay your Student Loans?
Statistically, 13% of student loan borrower does not pay their debt. Believe it or not, avoid to pay student loan is the worst financial decision you can ever make. When you don’t pay your loan, suddenly you can find yourself in a financial prison. Let us look at what would happen when you stop repayment. Starting from you quit repaying, after 270 days your loan goes in“default”. In case of default on loan, consequences will not be positive. Besides ruining your credit score, the following results occur.
All of your entire loan account plus accrued interest turn into payable. You become ineligible for some programs such as student loan forgiveness and changing repayment plans. The lender could take legal measure against you. In case you are a Federal employee, you can be subjected up to 15% of your salary to repay garnishment. Your tax return, Social Security and Federal payments could be garnished.
What you can do?
If you face a problem to pay your loan, it is better to contact your lender at once. There are certain alternatives that will assist you which is preferable than escaping of payment. Also, you may switch to IBR or PAYE, which are income-based plans that consider your payment at 0%. Finally, check to be informed if you are eligible for student loan forgiveness program.
