studentloanhero

Great question! My best tip would be to not bury your head in the sand and hope that the situation will go away. My initial student loan balance of $74k ballooned to $107k simply because I ignored the problem, stopped making payments, and let some of my loans slip into default. So I always encourage student loan borrowers to take action rather than let what happened to me happen to them. Perhaps that means switching to an income-driven repayment plan or putting student loans in deferment. Either of these options is better than ignoring the bills and missing payments. Ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away. It only makes things worse.

Your situation certainly sucks, but you’re not completely fucked! One of the first things you can do to protect yourself is check your credit report on annualcreditreport.com. You can ensure your loans are captured accurately, and are not erroneously in default. You can also check out income-driven repayment plans to help manage your debt and decrease your payments. If you have had a bad experience with Navient, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau.

Hey dino-deb. That sounds like a really tough situation, but it’s awesome to hear how you’re making it work! The truth is that private student loans have far fewer and less appealing options for repayment than federal loans. You don’t get access to income-driven repayment plans, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, lenient delinquency policies, and more. One of the reasons we strongly advise taking full stock of your financial situation before refinancing a federal loan is because you lose all of these options by doing so, even if you do end up with a better interest rate. You unfortunately don’t have any real options with private student loans outside of refinancing them for a better rate, or somehow negotiating a different repayment plan with your private loan servicer. And as you’ve already seen, refinancing is never guaranteed. Right now, I’d suggest that any spare cash should go to paying down those private loans first because if things do take a turn for the worse (for whatever reason), the federal loans have a much softer cushion to land on with regards to delinquency and default. You seem to have a really good handle on your financial situation and options, but situations like your’s drive home the need for serious reform in the way our society handles paying for college.

Well, my expertise is in student loans and finance, not car repairs, but I think that means you need a mechanic :)

Ouch, that’s a lot of debt. Are they all federal loans? If you do an income-driven repayment plan like PAYE or IBR, your payments will be capped at a percentage of your discretionary income. That can make your debt more manageable as you build your practice. If you opt to refinance your loans, you can get a lower interest rate and different repayment terms, but you do have some drawbacks; you’ll lose out on federal loan benefits like access to income-driven repayment plans and deferment or forbearance. We actually have a guide for student loan repayment specifically for dentists that can give you more information about your options.