Navient Student Loan Forgiveness Programs
After the Navient Lawsuit, it became clear for everybody that Navient harmed the borrowers. Well, taking this an advantage for yourself, you can highly increase your chances of wiping out your student loan debts or at least reduce your monthly student loan payments.
Briefly about Navient
In the United States of America, Navient is among the top well-known loan servicers. Although its name is drawn to controversy recently, it does not change the fact that it helped many students to get the money they need for attending a university. Navient got split from Sallie Mae in 2014 and started to handle DOE student loans. The amount of student loans Navient manages is about $300 billion. There is a wide range of services that Navient handles, such as student loan forgiveness programs, repayments plans, and many more related student loans. As Navient works in collaboration with the Department of Education, it offers various student loan forgiveness programs for the borrowers. This means you are lucky having a chance of getting Navient loan forgiveness.
Navient Lawsuit
Students in their Navient lawsuit claimed that Navient misled them. As there are many difficulties for the students, here are some basic facts about Navient:
- Navient misallocated the student loan payments:
- Navient misrepresented the student loan repayment options:
- Navient surprised the students with its late fees:
- Navient falsified much more information about student loans and repayment system
One of the recent facts is that Navient also provided false and confusing information about getting student loans without cosigner. Although, you cannot make an allegation against Navient alone, as Navient does not accept all claims on Navient Lawsuit. However, by considering all these factors above, you can easily qualify for Navient student loan forgiveness.
Navient Loan Forgiveness
Although there are Navient lawsuit and misleading activities of Navient, you cannot make a Borrower Defense to Repayment Discharge claim against Navient. Hopefully, there are several ways to get loan forgiveness. If you want to eliminate your student loans, you might be eligible to one of the Navient student loan forgiveness programs. The truth, to get forgiveness for Navient loans, you should ask yourself a question: “Are my loans federal or private?” Answering this question can be your task to do with a little help obviously, but clarifying both cases for you is our task.
Let’s look through both options, private and federal loan forgiveness separately.
Private Navient Student Loan Forgiveness
Unfortunately, there is not a thing as private loan forgiveness. Nevertheless, there are various ways to get rid of private student loans. These are:
- Disability or death private student loan forgiveness
- Bankruptcy private student loan forgiveness
- Private student loan forgiveness due to your job
Disability or death private student loan forgiveness
In case of death or disability Navient accepts to forgive your private student loans. As the recent changes in tax law, if private student loans are discharged, the borrowers will not be obliged to pay the taxes for the discharged amount.
Bankruptcy private student loan forgiveness
One of the ways to remove your private student loans is to file an action against the student loan lender. Although your loans will not be discharged in case of bankruptcy, this is still a chance to get student loan discharge. Just consult with reliable student loan experts or your attorney.
Private student loan forgiveness due to your job
The federal student loan forgiveness programs give you a chance to eliminate your student loans in exchange for your working. Unfortunately, Teacher Loan Forgiveness and Public Loan Forgiveness program are available for only the borrowers who have federal student loans. However, some employers offer repayment for private student loans as well. These employers are rare, but you might get lucky and take your note that this trend is now increasing.
Federal Navient Student Loan Forgiveness
You are lucky if your loans are federal. There is a high chance of getting loan forgiveness in your case. The factors such as your income and career can make you eligible for one of the Navient student loan forgiveness programs.
As we already mentioned above, Navient is in partnership with the U.S. Education Department. This means the borrowers who have federal loans from Navient can be able to remove their student loan debts.
If your loans are federal, and they are from Navient, you can get Navient student loan forgiveness through one of the following options:
- Navient & Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program
- Navient and Teacher Loan Forgiveness (TLF) Program
- Navient and TPD Discharge Program
- Navient and Income-Driven Repayment Plans
- Navient and Other Student Loan Discharges
Navient & Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is one of the fantastic ways of getting Navient student loan forgiveness. To qualify for this program, you should work in the public sector and should make your payments regularly.
According to the statistics 99% of the borrowers fail to get public service loan forgiveness, although they are highly eligible for the program. We are sure you want to be among that lucky 1 % and get Navient student loan forgiveness through PSLF.
PSLF program is created in 2007 to give a chance of forgiveness to the borrowers of federal student loans via working in a low-income government job. Taking into consideration of this program’s benefits, it is highly recommended to apply.
The benefits of PSLF are as following:
- 100% forgiveness for your federal loans
- Regular payments according to your salary
- Loan forgiveness after 10 years, not taxable balance
Qualifications required for the public service loan forgiveness program is quite applicable for the borrowers. The borrower should work for the state, government, federal or non-profit organization as a full-time employee. The exact public services are:
- Military service
- Public education, library and health services
- Public safety services
- Service for disabled veterans and elder individuals
- Service in school or childhood education and so on.
Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness program
Take your note that, if you are working in a for-profit organization or labor union and get your federal student loans you are not qualified for the PSLF program to get Navient student loan forgiveness.
If you had already applied to PSLF before and got rejected, then you have a new opportunity as a Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. This program is for including more borrowers. There are more payment programs in TEPSLF as well, such as extended, consolidation standard, consolidation graduated and graduated repayment plans. However, this program is for the first comers. Our recommendation for you is to apply as soon as possible.
Navient and Teacher Loan Forgiveness (TLF) Program
To qualify for the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program, you should have a certain amount of student loans and should work in a low-income educational sphere. This is a breathtaking opportunity if you are a teacher and have a huge burden as Navient student loans. TLF program works after 10 years, as all of your student loans are being forgiven, the remaining part of your loans after this period will be forgiven as well. Although teachers are qualified for the public service loan forgiveness program, it is better applying firstly to the TLF to get Navient student loan forgiveness, if you are a respective teacher.
What are the eligibility requirements for the TLF program?
- You should have federal student loans
- You should make your regular payments and should have made till that day on a regular basis
- Your loans should be gained for educational purposes, no other special purposes
- You should have completed 5 years of full-time teaching
- You should have employed in a secondary or an elementary school
To get detailed information about the eligibility requirements for the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program, look at our blog posts.
Navient & TPD Discharge Program
Got your Navient student loans and struggling to pay them due to your disability? Well, you have got an opportunity to get rid of them entirely. There is a Permanent Disability discharge program for who were disabled and cannot pay their student loan debts.
The U.S. Education Department offers a TPD program to the total and permanent disable borrowers of federal student loans and TEACH Grant Obligations. There are 3 types of loans that make borrowers eligible for the TPD program to get the forgiveness, which are Perkins Loans, Family Education Loans, and Direct Federal Loans.
With this Total and Permanent Disability program, your service obligation can be discharged as well.
To qualify for the Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) Discharge Program, you should have determined mental or physical injury which:
- can be resulted in the death
- can last longer than sixty months
- did last sixty months and longer
Navient & Income Driven Repayment Plans
If you have a federal loan and you want to get forgiveness for Navient loans, it is needed to pay attention to your choice of a payment plan. Here we will explain all options of student loan repayment plans.
There are various income-driven repayments and two other options of you apart from income-driven repayment plans. Here are the repayment plans to benefit in the long-run, as well as in the short-run:
- Income-Based income-driven repayment plan
- PAYE – Pay As You Earn income-driven repayment plan
- Standard income-driven repayment plan
- REPAYE – Revised Pay As You Earn income-driven repayment plan
- Graduated repayment plan
- ICR (income contingent) plan
Let’s now understand each of these programs separately and help you to choose and benefit from the one that suits you the best.
PAYE – Pay as you earn income-driven repayment plan
It might seem a little hard to pay for your loans about 10 years by working with low-income. While thinking about how to avoid this situation, you come across with a repayment plan called Pay As You Earn. This income-driven repayment plan is one of the most advantageous plans because you want to get loan forgiveness.
Via PAYE repayment plan, a borrower can adjust her/his monthly payments in accordance with her/his monthly income. Enrolling in this program, you can get rid of your federal student loans in a certain period.
REPAYE – Revised Pay as you earn income-driven repayment plan
Revised Pay As You Earn income-driven repayment plan is created as an extension of the PAYE repayment plan. REPAYE income-driven repayment plan is excellent with its additional features and benefits for the borrowers of Navient federal student loans.
REPAYE income-driven repayment plan is making eligible to get forgiveness after twenty years for undergraduate students and twenty-five years for the graduate students. If your Navient loans are Graduate Plus federal loans, Direct federal loans or Stafford federal loans, then you are highly welcome in this income-driven repayment plan.
Income-Based income-driven repayment plan
Although Income-Based income-driven repayment plan can be a bit out-of-date considering there are PAYE, and REPAYE income-driven repayment plan is in a spot right now, it might fit you the best.
Borrowers who have financial hardships, meaning low-income or no income, they might consider getting into an income-based repayment plan.
In this case of seeing no high-income in your future, you can get the benefit of income-based repayment plan as well.
Standard income-driven repayment plan
Based on your student loans, and the size of them, the payments are calculated as a normal payment plan in a standard income-driven repayment plan. This income-driven repayment plan can be a perfect option for the borrowers who:
- Want to pay their Navient loans less than thirty years
- Cannot be qualified other repayment plans due to their high income
- Have a small amount of loan left and want to pay it in a short amount of time rather than a more extended period like in any other repayment plans
With a standard income-driven repayment plan, you can make your payments regularly and on time by paying low interest.
Income Contingent repayment plan
Other than income-driven repayment plans, there are Income Contingent repayment plan and Graduated repayment plan available for the borrowers.
To benefit from Income Contingent repayment plan, borrowers:
- Should in need of relief or financial hardship
- Should not expect higher earnings in the future
- Would like to be qualified for Navient forgiveness
The difference of Income Contingent repayment plan from the other repayment options is its calculation process. This program calculates your payments in 2 various ways and offers you a combination of 2 low payments. To learn more about the calculation and Income Contingent repayment plan, visit our blog page.
Graduated repayment plan
Although Graduated repayment plan is apart from income-driven repayment plans, it is calculated as Standard income-driven repayment plan. With Graduated repayment plan, the first years the borrower only pays the interest of the loan. In which cases a borrower should consider this repayment plan is as follows:
- The borrowers think they are not qualified for the income-driven repayment plans
- The income of the borrower is high enough
- The borrowers want to pay a low amount of student loan currently, knowing their income will increase in the future
- The borrower expects to pay Navient student loans slowly and without putting anybody into any difficulty
Of course, there are drawbacks of this repayment plan. With Graduated repayment plan, you will pay a higher amount for your student loans than in any other repayment plan. Obviously, this is due to the fact of paying the interest rate for the first years.
Navient & Other Student Loan Discharges
We have already provided you with a piece of detailed information about the ways of getting Navient loan forgiveness. However, you might evaluate that you are not qualified any of these programs and plans. Then, don’t get discouraged as there are other ways of wiping out your Navient loans.
Other student loan discharges are:
- Unpaid Refund Discharge program
- Closed School Loan Discharge program
- False Certification Discharge program
Unpaid Refund Discharge program
To get Unpaid Refund for your Navient loans, you should’ve withdrawn from your school after you received student loans. Your school might agree to pay back the amount you have paid in case you are eligible for the refund.
Closed School Loan Discharge program
If you are among those who withdraw from their school soon after its closure or while they are enrolling, you might think about applying for the Closed School Loan Discharge program. You can get incredibly detailed information about this program via our blog post Closed School Loan Discharge program, its application process, eligibility requirements and list of closed schools.
False Certification Discharge program
This program applies to those who have been falsely certified for federal aid by their school. To be eligible to this program, your loans should be Parent Plus loans, FFEL or Federal Direct loans.
In case your loans are discharged, you are not obligated to pay your student loans. Additionally, you have the right to get the reimbursement for the amount you have already paid.
How to Apply for Navient Forgiveness
As there are various programs available for you to get Navient student loan forgiveness, they each have a different application process and eligibility requirements as well. Let’s look for a piece of brief information on the application process of each program separately.
The application process of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program
The first application step for the PSLF program is getting a full-time job in the public sector, then enrolling in an income-driven repayment plan. Take in mind that you should make your regular payments monthly and have paid 120 credits at least till this date. After all these, you can fill the application form for PSLF accordingly.
The application process of the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program
To apply for the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program, you should get a printed version of application form for TLF, as you cannot fulfill it online. After printing the TLF form, fill the part which needs to be fulfilled by the borrower, meaning you.
Above all, you need to submit this completed form to your loan servicer. They will evaluate your application and know if you are eligible for Navient loan forgiveness via the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program.
The application process of the Total and Permanent Disability Discharge program
After you learn you are eligible for this discharge program, you can feel free to fill the TPD application form. You should carefully fulfill the application form and submit additional documents proving that you are totally or permanently disabled.
There are two options for you to fulfill the TPD form. You can either fill it online or download the printable version of it. In this program, because of your situation, you can request a TPD application by phone as well.
If not possible to fulfill the application by yourself, anyone from your side can be a representative for you in this application process.
The application process of Closed School Loan Discharge program
Get in touch with your loan servicer. After the completion of the application form, you should submit it over to your loan servicer. He/She will inform you about the status of your application. You can learn more from your loan servicer about if you need to make regular payments for your Navient student loan forgiveness under your case.