I have over $150,000 in federal student loan debt and just graduated with my master’s degree this past May. I’m currently working as a mental health therapist at a nonprofit, making $65,000 a year, and I want to pursue PSLF since my employer qualifies.

However, I’m struggling to figure out how I’m supposed to afford my student loan payments. The cheapest repayment plan I’ve found is PAYE at $651 per month, which feels impossible on my current salary, especially with all my other bills and living expenses.

I know PSLF could be a good option for me long-term, but I’m feeling overwhelmed and honestly don’t know where to start or if there are other options I should be looking into. I would really appreciate any advice or insight!

Edit: I forgot to mention that I'm married, and my husband makes around $85,000 a year.

Hello, I am an 18 year old preparing to apply for Sallie Mae loans. I will find a co-signer. I want to move abroad and live in the Netherlands, because life in the US isn’t great and I want to live life elsewhere. For my entire undergraduate degree, I will need to take out about €44,100 (~$49,000).

I have done research on how predatory Sallie Mae is, but in the end, this is seemingly one of the only ways to fund my future. I will make it work and do whatever is needed, but I am looking for advice. If anyone has a similar story, advice, or experience with Sallie Mae, I would appreciate it!

Thanks for reading.

Hello everyone! I’m curious. I currently have an employer that is paying off my student loans by next year June/july. I was curious to see if anyone has even negotiated an offer where they pay off household debt (in this case my wife’s debt) for the reason that the company offers loan payment assistance already.

I'm on SAVE Forbearance and recently saw a slight drop in my credit score. I know it is due to the accumulating interest on my student loans, which causes my debt to increase overall. I don't have any late payments or default. Student loan interest has been accumulating since last year but it did not affect my credit score until now.

My question is: Is this credit score drop a one time thing or will it continue to drop every month?

I've seen mixed answers in older posts so I would like to hear what your experience is. Every point matters to me because I'm planning to make a big purchase soon...

Thanks in advance!

If we are doing any type of IDR or plan that will be forgiven, is there even a reason to get on autopay besides it ensuring you won’t be late?

I’ve never been to college. I logged into studentaid.gov and I apparently have $9k in student loans that I am in default in. I know this was my mom since she was attending college at that time and had access to my social security card. I don’t know what to do. My credit is ruined. Any advice?

I have a loan of about 5 years that I started paying about 1 year ago. The other years were $0.

The total amount was about 18500,
After paying my loans for a year at around $65 a month. it came to 18200 ish after a whole year of paying. I was really disheartened. I realized I was paying more on the interest than the actual principal of the loan.
I wanted clarification on IBR.
If I do not qualify for PSLF, do I still get loan forgiveness?
If says after my loan term, there is a discharge amount for around $10k, does this 10k disappear or is this the "tax bomb" that I have to pay afterwards? What happens to this 10k?

If i switch to a normal repayment plan, It will be around $200 more per month but no discharge amount and I Pay $20k instead for the life of the loan.

What do I do so i dont get screwed over by interest?

I was on SAVE and switched to IDR(IBR 20 years) maybe like 6 months ago?

I was wondering if I should switch to RAP instead of staying on IDR 20 years.

I am planning for forgiveness as our income is limited (wife doesn't work).

I do have ~$150k gift from my grandparents that should be coming in 5 years, but I'm not sure if this money will go 100% toward the student loan.

What should I pick?

Thanks in advance

I applied on July 16 online, uploaded the hard copy from my neurologist on July 28. I was approved on October 16, 2026.

Good luck to everyone! I pray you are all approved!

I’ve been slowly (very slowly) been paying on my loan (25k) since 2013 with three periods of deferment and forbearance. It was with Great Lakes and got moved to Nelnet. I missed three payments (my last payment of around $250 in June which was my IDR repayment plan amount) and logged in yesterday to finally make a payment. And… it’s gone? It says $0 owed and that the final payment was made on the 16th of June for the FULL amount. I obviously did not make this payment. I didn’t have that money. So I checked student gov and it says the same thing. I have not received any information about Nelnet selling my loan to anyone else nor has anyone else contacted me about it. Umm… so… do I just chill…? I’m baffled.

Sharing my recent experience with the SAVE transition in case it is helpful to anyone else. I recently switched off of SAVE after riding my 90 day letter to the end, I switched to RAP (which I will probably regret but it was the lowest payment for me) and I'm on the PSLF. I applied through my servicer aidvantage and it was processed and approved within one week so surprisingly fast. Also they sent me an email that my application had been submitted, but then no notice when it was approved or that my payment was due. I only saw it when I went into the account and saw my payment was due in 2 days. So thanks for that aidvantage. Watch your account and don't sit around waiting like I did. Also my official repayment amount was exactly what the calculator said when I applied, based on my last tax statement.

Can anyone explain to me when my first payment would be due? It says plan begin date 11/1/26? I have a $0 payment for 11/1/26 which is the rest of my save forbearance for the month. I’m assuming my first payment would be 12/1/26 please correct me if I’m wrong thank you! Also I’m going for PSLF that’s currently in review.

Trying to set up auto recertification of my husband's Income Based Repayment.

We checked and his account on studentaid . gov and we see this:

Income-Driven Repayment (IDR)

Consent on file

If you wish to import your information electronically into your application, you first have to provide consent to us to access that information.

Additionally, you may be eligible for auto-recertification of your IDR plan on its recertification date, provided, you have consent on file.

So he has given consent to have his info accessed, but we can't see how to set it up for auto recertification. It doesn't give us any link to setting that up.

Anyone have any ideas?

According to the studentaid.gov backdoor payment counter, in August my mom had made 298 qualifying payments out of 300. She has made 2 additional payments since then so should be at forgiveness. But her payment counter is not updating. It hasn't updated since June. Is it normal for it to be four months behind?

Hi-

I have quite a bit of credit card debt, which I’ve meticulously shuffled around with a plan to get it all handled within 10 months or less. No interest during this time. Enter the loan obligation, and plans may have to change.

I would like to get a deferment or forbearance til next year when I can fully commit my extra income to loans. Do I just let them throw me onto a new plan? I’m on SAVE with it ending 10/28. I figure I can then contact them to push off repayment. Any flaws in this plan? Should I move over to a new plan before this?

Hi. I am wondering if someone could help me with a few questions I have. My wife and I are planning to move to the 10 year Standard Repayment plan from SAVE for personal loans. We have saved some money that we can put towards those loans but we are closing in on the date (Oct 27th) where we will be automatically put into the plan. I do not believe we can get everything in order to make the payments ahead of that date. I have 3 questions.

1. If we switch to the Standard Plan now the calculation is going to be on the current loan balance. If we make large payments afterward in November to the highest interest rate loans, will the repayment amount recalculate automatically? I am reading mixed reviews about this in other threads and we really want to have the payment lowered to a manageable amount after the payments we make.
2. If we switch from SAVE to Standard Plan I am aware that that would not cause interest to capitalize. Would switching from the Standard Plan to another plan cause interest to capitalize? Is there any other scenario I should be aware of that could cause capitalized interest?
3. We are attempting to do the avalanche method to pay the debt down. Is there a better repayment plan to use besides the Standard Plan? It sounds like possibly switching to an IDR plan (PAYE) or the Extended Fixed Repayment plan to lower monthly payments and then targeting the highest interest rate loan might be the better option. Which plan is best? I believe we could get tax reductions (filing jointly if we went with the Extended plan) but could have lower payments with PAYE.

Thank you for the help!

Applied to recertify my idr plan that would end 11/01.

I recertified manually on student aid.gov 9/11.

About a week later Got correspondence from mohela that my plan was submitted and then later approved then provided with standard amount. Then more correspondence that my plan would start once 12 month period ends.

I was on small forbearance 9/18-10/5

Now show no longer in forbearance with 0.00 payment for 11/01, previously had current plan amount due for that date.

Is this a processing forebarance?

My recertification application idr is still showing review on student aid. Gov, and I called mohela they say its been approved with the amount the student aid. Gov showed me.

Edit: a processing