I wanted to share a lil milestone. I racked up $140k of student debt for my graduate education (I went to undergrad for basically free). I have carried so much shame and guilt over this debt and feel responsible for all the ways this debt has held my partner and I back.

We decided to aggressively pay off the debt in 5 years and we have offically paid off 50% of the loan. I'll hopefully have this paid off by the time I'm 33 years old and I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Things that have helped: I refinanced in 2024 and my wife was willing to co-sign. Our interest rate is 4.25% through SoFi. We pay 2100/month in loans so it's a hefty monthly payment. I'm really lucky to have a supportive partner that sees it as our debt. We also make decent salaries and have a low mortgage.

Thanks for letting me share!

Hi all, as in the post name I've got substantial student loan debt; I work in healthcare and most likely won't be getting a PSLF job anytime soon, and I'm trying to get my game plan together on how to tackle this. My new gross income moving forward will most likely be around ~133k (I live in CA tho so taxes kicking my ass) and am living at home with my parents for the foreseeable future, no kids, single. Been trying to do my research and at first I thought I wanted to ride out the IDR plan making only min payments for 20 years (all my loans were taken out in 2021) but now I'm thinking I want to start with an avalanche method as I have a couple of higher interest loans (7.54% as my highest) and I'm not paying any rent right now so I have more money to put towards my loans. I'm thinking I apply for IDR for lower monthly payments (according to the calculator it'd be $81/mo, it's v low right now as I haven't had to recert my income. I also just got the notice I'm getting kicked off SAVE), and apply avalanche method? Specifically as noted before, I have no idea if I'll be in a PSLF job anytime soon and I'd like to just finally have a game plan in place and stop feeling helpless about what to do. Any insight/advice would be appreciated. Sorry if the post is missing any other relevant info you may need to offer advice, just lmk in the comments.

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for some advice on how to handle my student loan situation. I recently graduated with my BSN after attending nursing school for 3 years, and I'm now working as an RN in California.

Unfortunately, I accumulated quite a bit of student loan debt, and I'm trying to figure out the smartest way to manage it, especially since my main priority right now is lowering my monthly payments.

Here's my current breakdown:

Private Student Loans:

• Sallie Mae: $105,000 at 12.25% fixed
• College Ave: $10,580 at 15.04% fixed

Federal Student Loans:

• Nelnet: $53,000 with interest rates ranging from 4.63% to 6.53%

Total student loan debt: Approximately $165,000

I've been looking into refinancing my Sallie Mae and College Ave loans together so I can have one monthly payment with a lower interest rate. However, I'm concerned that my credit score and debt-to-income ratio might make it difficult to qualify.

I've also considered taking out a personal loan to pay off the private student loans, but I'm not sure if that would be a smart decision.

I understand that federal student loans have income-driven repayment options, but unfortunately, my biggest issue is the private loans, which don't offer the same flexibility.

My questions are:

1. Has anyone successfully refinanced over $100k in private student loans with a similar income or credit score?
2. Would having a cosigner significantly improve my chances of qualifying for a lower interest rate?
3. Are there any refinancing companies you'd recommend, especially for nurses?
4. Is there any way to negotiate lower monthly payments directly with Sallie Mae or College Ave?
5. Would refinancing into a 15- or 20-year loan make sense if my main priority is lowering my monthly payments?
6. Is there anything else I should be looking into that I might be overlooking?

I'm not trying to avoid paying my loans. I just want to find a realistic way to manage them without having most of my income going toward student loan payments.

I'd really appreciate any advice, especially from people who have been in a similar situation or have experience with refinancing large private student loans.

Thanks in advance!

Hello all. I am a 24 YO recent graduate with federal loans 14k unsub and 11k sub. No private loans.

I am broke and living at home looking for a job. I see RAP will allow me to freeze my interest and deduct $50 off my principal for a $10 monthly payment. I am interested in utilizing it. However, as it is very costly for those on higher incomes, can I switch to IBR after a year? I know I won’t get credit towards 20 year forgiveness but that’s fine. The only thing I also need to know is: will my sub loans still be eligible for the last two years of the three year interest pause?

Thanks

I’ve seen so many posts about the calculator and then the actual payment being off

It happened to me as well. I was on the SAVE plan submitted before my 90 days (should’ve waited I didn’t know about the extra 30 days lol 😂) but u submitted and the payment on FSA for RAP was $667 I select this one. I submitted paystubs not 2025 tax returns AGI because income has decreased due to increasing money to my retirement accounts to lower my AGI.

So it’s approved by Mohela it comes back to $900 smh. I call and ask them was something calculated differently, family size (it’s me and my son), or my 2025 returns vs the stubs I uploaded. The advance agent couldn’t verify she just submitted for a recalculation and also a processing forbearance.

She said once my SAVE forbearance ends 10.28 then the processing forebearance will start while they are recalculating. The new payment should start by 12.28

Once I get this new calculation I am already planning to write my state reps about this because if folks are choosing plans based on FSA calculator (which gives a cheaper amount) why are the service providers not using this same calculator ? Idk what the deal is but it’s so frustrating.

Has anyone gotten a recalculation that matched the original amount of FSA calculator ?

My new amount to be paid is $1,085. There is no way i can pay this. I guess I won't be purchasing a home any time soon.

Hey everyone, just as the title says my 90 day deadline is 12/8 and I’m trying to get ahead of it before it’s too late. I’m married and have one kid and another on the way. I’m not sure what repayment options I’ll have but my problem is that I filed jointly with my wife this past year and was thinking about filing separately to help bring down the payments a little for when I start paying up. Should I apply for general forbearance to see if I can push it to early next year after I file my taxes, so I can claim two dependents instead of one? Also, just wanting to give me more time to pay off some of my other debt before making the loan payments. I also am making more money than when I filed last year so I’m not sure how much of a difference it will end up making. If anyone has any advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

Hello brilliant Reddit community. I'm trying to make sense of my options in switching off of SAVE and hoping you can help.

I have $113,000 in debt, $21k of which is unpaid interest, from July 2013.

We just moved to Canada and don't believe we will be coming back. We are a family of 4, married filing jointly. We have about $14k a year in rental income from the US. A family member just passed away and I will likely be inheriting up to $80k via retirement funds. The amount my husband makes in Canada is within the Foreign Exclusion threshold.

I am working towards forgiveness since I most likely can't find a PLSF qualifying job in Canada (I have 71 prior PLSF payments). My plan is forgiveness of the loans.

Here are my questions:

1. If I move from SAVE to IBR then later move to RAP, will moving from IBR to RAP capitalize the interest?

2. Will the inheritance count as income? If so, should I move to IBR and then after that tax year switch to RAP?

3. We only started renting our US house two months ago. How do I prove this as income for the income certification?

4. Am I missing anything? What would you do?

Here are the numbers based on making $14k a year:

$113,000 in debt, $21k of which is unpaid interest, from July 2013.

Old IBR: $0 payments, $189,145 forgiven Jan 2041, estimated tax bomb $26,463 

RAP: $10 monthly payments, $2,310 paid, $111,448 forgiven Jan 2046, estimated tax bomb $12,566

But these numbers would be different if the inheritance counts as income.

Information:

• Currently married filing jointly
• I am on PSLF and was on the SAVE plan, but now need to switch to IBR (about to hit the 90-day mark)
• My spouse is on the standard repayment plan, so filing status will not impact monthly payments
• Our incomes are roughly equal

I have run through the HR Block tax return estimator and found that married filing separately would barely impact our tax return, whereas MFS would decrease my student loan monthly payments by almost half compared to MFJ, so we plan to switch to MFS this year.

My question is now that I finally have to switch loan repayment plans to IBR, do I need to base my tax filing status on our taxes from last year (filing jointly), or can I choose "married filing separately," since we will be filing that way for the current tax year?

Hi Everyone,

I've been reading through the group on switching from the SAVE plan and which plan to select to to preserve my IDR Account Adjustment remaining payments for forgiveness.

I've just looked at the hidden API and am having a little bit of a freak out. Maybe someone can explain to me, but I should give a little background first.

My loans are from 1999, so they're 27 years old.

I was one of the unfortunate 8 million FFELP Federal loan borrowers that had their loans sold to private banks and lost my federal protections. I took the advice to reconsolidate back to a Federal Direct loan in April 2024, before the cutoff, so I could take part in the IDR Account Adjustment forgiveness.

I was told to select the SAVE plan at the time so the loan would go into forbearance, and I was happy for this because when it became a private loan, it was no longer subsidized and the interest swung up to 8-9%. I've already paid 3 x the loan, but still owe a third and I'm sick of this predatory nonsense.

I took a look at the hidden API and noticed some things. Under the type "SAVE" it shows that I have 9 payments left, which matches the screenshots I took on the Student Aid site just before Trump took office, as was suggested by the Debt Collective and other nonprofits.

What's worrying me is I've been reading through the different new plans and what to avoid so I can still preserve my IDR forgiveness, but what shows (below) is every other plan besides SAVE shows my remaining payments as much higher.

I was advised to select IBR as my new plan and since my loans are from before 2014 it would be an IBR 2014 plan.

Does this mean I would have 130 remaining payments until forgiveness under the IBR 2014 plan or when I set the new plan should it recognize that I had 9 remaining payments under SAVE?

Any experience and advice would be appreciated.

I have until Nov 11th to choose a plan.

Here's the API info below.

I'm also serviced by Nelnet if that helps.

---
        "type": "ICR",
        "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y",
        "loanEligibleIndicator": "Y",
        "qualifyingPaymentCount": 111,
        "eligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "ineligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 300,
        "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 189
     -----
        "type": "IBR",
        "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "N",
        "loanEligibleIndicator": "N",
        "qualifyingPaymentCount": 111,
        "eligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "ineligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 300,
        "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 189
      ----
        "type": "IBR_2014",
        "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y",
        "loanEligibleIndicator": "Y",
        "qualifyingPaymentCount": 110,
        "eligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "ineligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 240,
        "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 130
      -----
        "type": "SAVE",
        "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "U",
        "loanEligibleIndicator": "U",
        "qualifyingPaymentCount": 111,
        "eligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "ineligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 120,
        "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 9
      -----
        "type": "PAYE",
        "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "N",
        "loanEligibleIndicator": "N",
        "qualifyingPaymentCount": 111,
        "eligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "ineligiblePaymentCount": null,
        "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 240,
        "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 129

I received a final notice from Advantage, and the email says that I will be placed into a new repayment plan in 30 Days. I received this email on October 20^th.

A little timeline: I received an email from Advantage on July 11^th, 2026, that my SAVE Plan application has been denied.

That said, should I choose a new plan, I think otherwise they will automatically place me on the standard plan. Please give me your sage advice, Redditors. Thank you all!!

Hey everyone. I am wondering what success stories are out there of individuals successfully getting a delinquent remark removed from your credit report that was reported by aidvantage.

I know aidvantage does not offer goodwill gestures.

Edit: The address I was living at was not updated with aidvantage. While I was in school, I didn’t meet the part time requirement. Email linked to it was an iCloud email that was full of storage, so I couldn’t get incoming mail. I know it’s my fault.

How soon after filing Borrower Defense application did they put you in forebearance?

Appearantly at my sister's college they haven't disbursed the parent plus loan for the past summer semester or the current fall semsester. We have done everything right on the application and it was approved we are grandfathered in. She has a meeting Thursday. Any idea what it could be from? Hopefully it's something simple.

Hi team: I got the notice to recertify my income by Mohela with them saying that they'd hold onto the application until my current schedule (12 months of $0) was completed ~12/2026.

I submitted the IDR form and they're saying that I will start paying $1300+ starting 11/2026. I'm guessing that there may have been a misclick in my form where I should've hit recertify rather than recalculate, but I can't even access the form I used since studentaid.gov still has it 'in-process.'

Am I SOL and out $2600? I called Mohela this morning, escalated, and they're saying since it's processed it's done. Appreciate you all.

I've just finished my AA degree and I've always wanted to focus on getting a physics bachelors and getting into a research field. Due to some dumb choices in my freshmen year I wasn't able to get into the university nearest to my home for physics but I did get accepted for English. At the same time I applied and was accepted to a further away university but I would have to take out loans for student housing (~22-25k in total including interest). My family thinks its a bad idea and that a job in physics will be hard to get, but I truly don't feel much passion for a future career in English. Is it worth it to go into debt for a major you're more passionate about? Or does it make more sense to go with a no-debt major you're less passionate about? Could really use some outside advice here.

What would the best strategy be if you were unemployed? I would/will have a $800-ish payment - based on my family's income.

My Partner would like to file separately and for me to maintain a zero $ student loan payment. I'm wondering if maybe I need to be a perpetual Jr. College student and just defer instead of paying the 5-6k extra to file jointly. Do I need to worry about the snowball of interest? Im like 21 payments from the 30 year (is that the correct # now) forgiveness. SIGH.

Basically, I lost my job to outsourcing, and it made me so mentally unwell that my partner is encouraging me (been over a year) not to return to work (you wouldnt believe the toxicity of my last job). I literally was forced to select, hire and then train my whole departments' replacements (self included), after being there a 1/2 decade and building the dept from the ground up.

I watch the thread daily, and I just want to say that I feel for you all. We are all facing such miserable and confusing choices. Peace be with you - one and all. <3

Thank you in advance.

Student loan interest does not compound, is that correct? If the interest does not compound once it shows as accrued does that mean future interest calculation is only based on the remaining principal and not based on the principal plus accrued interest? When the balance keeps growing does that mean the calculation for interest still only uses the original principle? Please explain.

Would a good plan be to just make the minimum required payment and then also make an extra payment allocated to principal only on just one loan to focus on bringing down that principal of the highest interest rate loan. Would that then reduce the daily accruing amount? Or would the accruing interest grow even quicker?
I’ve seen a few posts about focusing on one loan and just making sure I understand if it makes sense to focus on principal of one loan instead of focusing on all loans interest owed, (which never seems to touch the balance)Nelnet.

I’ve seen a lot of discourse regarding whether folks should switch from the SAVE plan prior to their deadline or to just be automatically moved to the standard repayment plan, but I haven’t seen my particular situation mentioned, and I’d be super grateful for any insight or clarification.

So I have direct unsub federal loans from 2016-2020 that are under the SAVE plan, and I have one direct unsub loan from 2024 that I used for grad school and the repayment plan currently says “TBD”.

I’m still in grad school and will be graduating in May 2027. My servicer (Nelnet) shows all of my loans being in deferment since I’m still in school. I don’t want to resume making payments until after I graduate and my grace period ends (I already used up the grace period for my undergrad loans, but not the one for grad school).

So should I switch plans now or wait until I graduate to explore my repayment options? From what my servicer currently shows, my monthly payment under the Standard plan would be just barely doable, but in the interest of continuing to build up my personal savings account, I’d like to explore other lower options.

My main concern is that switching to a new plan now would affect my deferment status somehow and that I’ll be responsible for payments immediately rather than in the summer of 2027. Ideally I’d like to explore new plan options closer to when I should actually be responsible for payments, but I can’t tell if that’s a bad idea or not.

(A less important question, but my undergrad loans that were on the SAVE plan also say “IDR Recertification Date: 6/16/2027” — does this actually mean something or is it another random placeholder date?)

I requested to move from SAVE to old IBR by my deadline in mid-October On finaid.gov. Today, I got an email from Mohela that there is a delay in processing my request and they will get to it in 90 days.

the email also says that if my loans are not in forbearance, that my loans remain due. I’m assuming that means that since I’m in the SAVE forbearance, I don’t have to pay until I get the next notice from Mohela that can come at most 90 days from now. I really can’t afford the standard 10 year plan, so I’m trying not to make a mistake. Has anyone else gotten this notice from Mohela after requesting their new repayment plan?

Imagine a borrower who’s monthly mandatory payment doesn’t cover interest accrued, so their interest is essentially subsidized. If they make more than they need to cover mandatory payments, is it better for them to save that money will making minimum payments and eventually make a lump sum payment with the savings? This way pushing through that interest gap would make less of a dent against their payment. As opposed to paying as much as they can each month.

$20K of student loans. $900 of that balance is an unsubsidized loan.

I have loans going back before 2016, and my interest rate range is 2.7-5.5%.

AGI of $5K in 2025. I expect around $10-$24K AGI this year. I'm self employed and overpay my estimated taxes so AGI is usually very low.

My goal is to pay them off as soon as possible, starting with the highest interest rate. Side hustle will be a definite once I decide on a plan.

I don't have any other debt besides student loans.

I'm just not sure what they consider discretionary income on either plan, so trying to just figure that out if possible. I'm leaning towards RAP but curious of opinions.

I don't expect my income to grow substantially the next few years as I'm a solo entrepreneur.

Tl;Dr: Recently was kicked from the SAVE program. What I do now?

Nelnet keeps calling... I haven't been making much of any progress on the roughly $60K set of a devil's dozen outstanding student loans. I make in the low 6 figures, and my current income stream has approximately %63 towards mortgage/bills/current loans, with about another %25 towards necessary living consumables and pet care.

I try to save or pay down the mortgage with the rest, but, ADHD is difficult to manage some weeks without fulfilling the needs of the project monster. I can do better in this department. Anyways, I digress.

What exactly is going to happen, especially once political houses shift back to the other side of where they are now? I'm not currently financially ready to take on the $340-$500/ monthly payments.

I plan to roll my financial need changes subtly into my pleas with my corporate masters regarding a compensation bump this next review cycle. I've not been having much traction with meaningful COLA or promotions pathways, but that's not the focus here, just backstory.

Once I do begin repayment, I plan to try and tackle all the smaller loans first before they balloon. Then prioritize any with higher APR or terms that would cause their balance to increase faster than any others.

Is it going to make any meaningful difference to consolidate into a different strategy such as a unified payoff loan with better terms? I'll lose any future Federal considerations if I do that since it'll no longer be qualified as a "student loan" but now as a simple "personal loan"...