Student Loan Repayment

Student loan repayment can prove to be a heavy burden for you if you don’t apply careful planning and forethought to your repayment schedules. Here are some steps for efficaciously managing your student loans.

How to Use Student Loan Repayment Calculator

1. Enter the remaining amount of the loans you’d like to refinance.
2. Enter the average annual interest rate of your loans.
3. Enter the amount of time left to repay your loan.
4. Use slider to increase your monthly payment.
5. Now check the remaining total student loan payments by year.

That’s it!

Student Loan Repayment Plans

It is better to develop a detailed loan repayment schedule with the assistance of a financial counselor. The schedule must be based on your budget. You must work out the plausible amount of installments you can repay each month. The goal of the plan must be repayment of the student loan as quickly as possible. This will free you financially sooner. In case you find yourself with some extra cash at any point of time, you should repay extra installments so that you are released from debt faster.

Consolidation of installments

Instead of paying many small monthly installments you should opt to consolidate all of them into one monthly installment. This will ease your financial situation each month. Consolidation also endows you with the option of choosing student loan repayment programs that carry a lower interest rate. This reduces the loan cost and the amount of monthly installments that you have to pay as well.
Choosing income contingent repayments

Income-based repayments are a very convenient option because they become due for repayment after you leave your course and enter employment. You need to pay your monthly installments only if your annual income exceeds the repayment threshold.

Student loan repayment program for federal employees

When federal employees take federally insured student loans for higher education, they can opt for the student loan repayment program that allows federal agencies to repay their employees student loans. The agencies submit a report to the Office of Personnel Management containing statistics like number of employees who availed the benefit, their designation and the amount of benefits paid out.

The employees have to sign a three-year contract with the agency. An employee can receive a maximum of $10,000 annually and a total benefit of $60,000. The program does not place any restrictions with regard to the academic disciplines eligible for this program benefit. However, if the employee is fired during the contract period he will lose the program’s benefit. Further if he transfers agency then his new employer does not have to repay his student loan.

Student loan repayment can be made a less daunting task by applying these suggestions in your repayment plan.