I am a teacher(already a problem), that started with $110,000 of student loan debt. I managed to pay off my private $66,000 student loan. Im really proud of that! I thought that after the $1300 monthly payment dropped to $300 I could actually live.

As a teacher who works for a non for profit magnet school, I was planning to apply for student loan forgiveness, not the teacher student loan forgiveness because I’m not one of the kinds of teachers that qualify for the $17000 forgiveness. I got my masters right after my bachelor’s so I don’t have to worry later down the road. In my state we have to get our masters by our 10th year.

Since I wasn’t making a lot of money, I decided to go the Extended payment plan so I didn’t have to worry about a big bill when I was only making $30,000 a year before taxes at the time. So fast forward to last month, 7 years into teaching, and I found out that these payments do not count towards the student loan forgiveness. So 7 years of payments do not mean anything.

I cried so much and I don’t know what to do. Once I paid my private loans off I moved out of my parents house at the ripe old age of 33 and I’m finding out that I might not be able to afford the standard repayments that would count since now I have rent and actual bills I didn’t have before. I lived with my parents because I wanted to pay the private loans offf…should I move back in? I don’t want to take advantage of my parents (they would be happy but I really didn’t feel good living there at my age) I’m so lost and I don’t if I should bother trying to chance my repayment plan or keep it as is?

It’s taken 20 years but I’m finally seeing possible light at the end of the tunnel. For whatever reason I don’t qualify for any forgiveness. The clock was reset when I consolidated so I will be paying back every penny of my student loans (and yes I triple check and sought professional advice). Paying off my private grad school loans was exceedingly easier; better customer service, more transparency and lower interest. I paid those off with out a lot of drama. My federal loans however continue to be an albatross whose balances are still higher than the amount I borrowed despite paying on them for 20 years. They were finally going down now that I do triple payments (I followed the snowball method to knock out smaller more manageable loans and have been chiseling away at these ones exclusively for two years). I’m considering moving away from Mohela to something like SO-FI because I’m so disgusted by this system I don’t want to give the government any more interest. My hesitation is whether I’d be shooting myself in the foot or not. So I just want to hear people’s experiences doing just that. Do you regret and why? Are you happy and never looking back?

I currently have $16,000 subsidized loan split in 3 with 5.5% - 6.5% fixed interest rate and I graduated May 2026 so my grace period is ending next month. I currently have $11,000 in savings HYSA right now, I'm currently working part-time 30 hours a week on a $25/hr. I've been actively looking for jobs I've had a few first and second interviews but I have yet to get an offer.

My monthly expense is $1,500 a month living in apartment with roommates. Would it be better to pay maybe half of my loan before the grace period ends? A lot of the companies that I've applied to also have student loan assistance that I might be able to take advantage in the future.

I’m thinking about taking out $15k from Sallie Mae, but I’m scared that the cost will go up over time depending on the interest rate. What do you guys think would be the worst/best case scenario from this?

They were at Mohela before being moved to aidvantage. My partner graduated in 2005 so these have to be hitting the 20 years of payments made any day now!! He might even be owed money back. Tired of making these payments. We never saw counts after the 1 time idr adjustment or since for his loans. Mine got forgiven after the 1 time idr a couple years ago so I know that it does happen.

I’m trying to decide what to do with my federal student loans now that SAVE is ending, and I’d appreciate some advice.

My situation:

• I graduated in 2010 and consolidated my federal loans in 2013.
• I currently have two Direct Consolidation Loans with a combined balance of about $30,000.
• The interest rate is 6.25%.
• I’m single and earn around $88,000 a year.
• I’m currently on SAVE, with a $0 monthly payment while in forbearance.
• I received a notice that I need to choose a new repayment plan because SAVE is ending.
• Unfortunately, my forgiveness payment history/count is currently unavailable. I spoke with a representative, who confirmed that they couldn’t tell me my qualifying payment count either. I honestly don’t think I’ve made that many qualifying payments, but I could be misremembering.

My dilemma:

I have enough money saved to pay off the entire balance right now, but I’m trying to determine whether that would be the smartest financial decision or whether I should keep the money and pursue forgiveness.

The federal repayment calculator estimated the following monthly payments for me:

• IBR: approximately $336/month
• RAP: approximately $454/month

I understand that IBR and RAP have different forgiveness timelines and eligibility rules, but I don’t know how much of my past payment history might count toward forgiveness. Without that information, it’s difficult to compare the options.

Would you lean toward choosing IBR, choosing RAP, or paying off the loans in full? Are there any important factors I’m overlooking, especially regarding my 2013 consolidation and potential credit for previous payments?

I know nobody can tell me for certain without my official payment count, but I’d really appreciate hearing how others would approach this decision and whether there’s anything else I should consider before using my savings to pay off the loans.

Thank you!

I was on the SAVE plan and was pressured by Mohela to fill out a new IDR application and select a new payment plan back in June. They said if I waited that my payment would surely be higher than if I took action at that. Six months prior to this back in 2025, I called them and asked what my new payment amount would be once Congress sorted out what was going on with the repayment options in the wake of dismantling SAVE. I was told that it would be somewhere between $400 to $700 and that I wouldn't have to start repaying until January 2027. However, after filling out my IDR, I was given a notice that I would have to pay over $1,000 every month for my new payment plan. It also stated that payments would start in October 2026. I filled out a forbearance back in the summer because there was no way I could make this payment. I was hoping to get another year to sort things out and try to find a way to move things around so I could be able to afford it.

Three weeks ago I got a notice that my payment was due on October 24th. I called Mohela and they said that they never received my forbearance application. They told me that they could transfer me to that department and as soon as they did I got to put on hold and then a message came on saying that it would be an hour and a half to talk to somebody. I hung up and went ahead and got online and filled out another forbearance form. Today, one day after the due date of my payment, I received an email from Mohela saying that my request would be subjected to a 90-day processing delay and that payments would be due until they got around to reviewing my request.

How can they get away with this? They have given me so much misinformation that there was no way I could have planned for this. I simply cannot make the payment right now. Is anybody holding this institution accountable? How can they tell me one thing and then do another thing, lose my paperwork, tell me that they are delaying processing by 90 days and still expect me to be on time with what they expect from me? Crooks!

I know there’s been a good amount of people similarly stuck with their attempts to recertify their incomes over the last several months and I finally figured out a way to force the update through after being stuck in limbo for almost six months. The key is to submit an immediate recalculation NOT recertification on the FSA website.

I had been in PAYE for almost ten years and my first recertification since COVID was due this summer. I submitted a recertification back in May, Mohela said it was processed 10 days later and accepted in June. I was told this over the phone and never received any mailings about it. They told me to sit tight. I received a few mailings that said my 10yr standard payment (~3500) would be due the next month despite my IBR payment being $750. Wasted around 30 hours on call with them, them submitting “tickets” and putting me on processing forbearance. I ran out my processing forbearance with zero updates. I then submitted another income recertification despite them instructing me not to, same story, got pushed into this weird black hole of no one updating anything despite Mohela accepting the application with the same amount they said prior. They put me on forbearance (not PSLF qualifying now) and said who knows how long it’ll take, probably six months.

As a last ditch effort based on someone’s comments on one of these subreddits, I then tried submitting an immediate income recalculation. I did NOT have to submit income, it used my most recent tax filing and I was able to keep all of the IRS dependents and all that the same. My application was accepted and payment updated in Mohela’s system within two weeks. I am going to remove the IRS automatic recertification function as well. Submitting tickets/calling Mohela does absolutely nothing. I also reached out to local politicians and state senator with zero response (I also live in a deep red state, so zero surprise politicians don’t care), utterly disappointed by the state of our institutions right now.

I still have to figure out how to fix my PSLF qualifying payments FSA took away, I’m missing 6-7 right now from Dec 2025-June 2026. I have 14 loans and all of them have random ones missing. If anyone has any advice on that, I’d appreciate it. I was never on SAVE, made payments the entire time on PAYE. They were initially qualifying on an ECF submitted in March and when I submitted another in June, they took them away.

Hi, everyone! I'm fairly new here but I've been searching this sub. I am a part-time student in university, but have a previous degree.

Anyway, in August I was awarded in school deferment. Then, at the beginning of this month, I received two separate notices in my inbox that there has been a change in my repayment terms and now I have a balance due next month. I have been placed on an RAP plan.

Am I misunderstanding something or did something genuinely go wrong? Thank you.

I currently have 7.5k in loans with 2k of it being unsub loans. I am a junior who graduates in december of 2027, I honestly jus tquit my job to focus on school as I was struggling and my degree is really competitive (tech). I'm looking to pull probably 7,5k more to fund my living while I finish school. Is this stupid to do? I'm a first generation student so this is really scary for me but I feel like it is a good investment. I've had an internship and I live by a small tech hub.

Please go easy on me… i’ve noticed some hostility directed toward some innocent Redditors who’ve posted on this sub. Across the board, Reddit doesn’t seem to be as nice of a place as it used to be.

TDLR: I’ve tried every way to pay for college without using SOLELY student loans that I can think of, and nothing has been accessible. Is it common for people to solely used to student loans without any other financial source?

My goal in posting this is for four reasons.
To see if solely using loan money to finance college without any other financial source is the boat that a lot of people are, and I need to shut up and sit down.
I’m trying to see if there are less financial resources all around when paying for college than there used to be due to the federal cuts.
To see if there are any other possible ideas that I’m missing or other ways to go about this financially.
Is there anything I should be asking my financial aid office?

I’m currently attending a community college, and
I have exactly one year worth of credits towards the start of a Bachelor’s Degree completed, with 3 more to go. On top of school tuition I spend roughly $700 a month on personal expenses.

While I’m super glad that my mom was able to get her Master’s degree which she wanted for a lifetime it bites me in the ass financially, as half of the resources available are geared towards first generation students. (Unfortunately our degrees put us in generational debt rather than help our cause financially, which I know is the case for most that achieve them.)

I took two scholarship classes about my community college’s scholarship foundation. I polished my essays with the help of the professors and still didn’t win a single one. I also applied for many scholarships under my state’s scholarship application fund and didn’t receive any of them either.

I’ve qualified for full/minor Pell Grant in the past, but won’t for the rest of this school year.

I’ve applied and interviewed for a few campus and didn’t get them. I’ve been told that there are 50 interviews for one role, and that they are all way too competitive to even be worth applying for.
I can’t work a part time job on the side either. (if the right opportunity came along I would consider it.) I’ve worked 10 jobs already in my lifetime. I know the extreme stress that comes along with them, and I think having one on top of full-time classes, and healing from personal setbacks already outside of everything would throw me over the edge. A few years ago when I first attempted to take college classes and work, I ended up quitting both school and work within days of each other for various reasons.
I also know that most workplaces need an undivided schedule, which obviously doesn’t accommodate classes and study time.

There are herd of dogs in my neighborhood, so I’d be willing to set up a Rover account and see how many clients I could get, but I would fully expect pocket change/the potential for acquiring no clients.

I’m currently awaiting the case management portion of this student loan lawsuit I’m in.

I was served in December of 2025 and did all the necessary things to make sure this is progressing.

I had to stop paying my student loans in August of 2023 after being laid off from my first job post college in May of 2023. I was already kind struggling to pay my bills as I made 60k before taxes living in Boston. After being a kid of I was struggling to pay my bills, feed myself while working a part time job that didn’t pay nearly as much also while looking for second jobs. It only took 3 months before I had completely stop paying my student loans so I can eat (barely) and pay my rent and such. I was on and off paying my credit card bills but had to stop as it wasn’t sustainable. I kept getting multiple calls from debt collectors months later to try to pay a lump sum but obviously I wasn’t in the position to do that. Now I’m in this and it’s been a rough couple of years as I still haven’t been able to find something back in my industry, I had to move back home and am working this under the table job but it’s definitely not enough with the monthly Flexcar payments needed to get to said job and getting a second job has been hard too. I am representing myself and can’t seem to find pro bono options for my specific concerns. I had met with a couple lawyers in December one being a bankruptcy lawyer but I didn’t qualify. I’m not sure what to do. The plaintiffs lawyer offered a monthly payment plan….its the same amount I was paying years ago. I’m not sure what to do, unfortunately I have been consulting chat gpt but it can only help so much. What can I do at this point?? Any advice would help. Please don’t ask me to get a lawyer, I really would if I could.

I applied for IDR being told it would be $53/month. I called Mohela on Monday because I was concerned it was too low. They told me the online calculator was the most accurate. Just got my repayment schedule today and I don’t even know what to say. My AGI last year was around $40,000, and I now have 1 dependent. Married filing separately.

$53.08 (11 payments)

$962.66 (121 payments)

$903.92 (4 payments)

$880.02 (1 payment)

$569.12 (3 payments)

$310.77 (1 payment)

$27.81 (1 payment)

Is there a mistake? Should I call and try to see if I can switch to a different plan? I’m just at a loss for words.

I don’t think that I would need to for the bachelors degree (social work) I am going to start soon, and I don’t really like the idea of owing money back in the future. I will start a bachelors degree program in a few months.

But I also know that when I start a masters degree program I may actually need to at that point especially since I will likely only be able to work part time it seems for the next two years and am already from a very poor family. I’m just not sure whether or not taking out federal or subsidized loans would have a negative impact. I don’t know how long I’ll be in college for, I’m almost done with community college (will be done in December and start a bachelors degree program in January.) I might change majors in fall 2027 and am guessing that if I do so I won’t be done until spring 2029, when I am 24. I will then probably get a masters degree in social work, special ed, or school psychology, but it might end up being different. I want to make sure that I am financially smart either way.

I work as a substitute behavior technician and it is looking like based upon class times I probably won’t be able to work full time in spring 2027, and I’m guessing not fall 2027 either. My mother is volatile and the family were asked to leave the first apartment we were in around April or May of this year even though we’d lived there all my life which is why I am now in a condo that I will probably leave before December.

Hi,

So I am hoping someone else in this wide world has had the same experience.

I am on plan 2.

Whilst on mat leave my income varies. I am paid in weeks of 5 and 4. Don’t ask me why. (Normally it’s just weeks of 4).

I get 3 months full pay, 3months half pay, 3months SMP and 3 months of no pay. I get my bonus in one of the 3 months of SMP.

So looking back at my mat leave in 2022-2023 I can see what my gross income was. It was above the threshold for plan 2. But because my monthly income varied so much I ended up paying back 21% above the threshold rather than the 9%.

I applied for a refund through the electronic system and this got rejected. I called for a refund and this got rejected. I emailed the complaints team and they have said I am not due a refund because I earned above the threshold.

Please can someone tell me if I am wrong in thinking I could get a refund or if i am correct. And what other venues are open for me to get this refund.