Federal student loans don’t require you to make payments while you are still enrolled at least half-time in school. In fact, there is an spare grace period without leaving school surpassing you have to start making payments on your federal loans. This is unlike private student loans, which often require firsthand repayment, plane if you are currently in school.
Understanding when your first student loan payments are due can help you plan superiority for repayment.
Here’s what you need to know well-nigh your first student loan payment:
- When is my first student loan payment due?
- Steps to make your first student loan payment
- Consider refinancing
When is my first student loan payment due?
For most federal student loans, you won’t have to make your first payment until the end of your grace period. The federal student loan grace period is the set value of time, from a starting point up to a given point, in which there isn’t a penalty for elapsed payment.
In most cases, this eligible grace period lasts for six months and begins once you have single-minded any of the following:
- Graduated from school
- Withdrawn from or left school
- Dropped unelevated half-time enrollment
Check Out: Grants to Pay Off Student Loans for 2022
Steps to make your first student loan payment
To make sure you are prepared for your first loan payment, follow these steps:
1. Find your loan servicer
Your student loan servicer will contact you via letter or email to remind you well-nigh when your first payment is due and the process for repayment. But if you have not received a letter from your loan servicer, you can find that information on the studentaid.gov website when you log in to your worth dashboard.
Alternatively, if you’re not sure how to log into your account, you can undeniability the Federal Student Aid Information Center (FSAIC) at 800-433-3243 to find out your loan servicer and get help with your account.
Read More: What Is a Student Aid Report?
2. Make on-time payments
The easiest way to unceasingly make on-time payments is to sign up for autopay. If you’re not worldly-wise to use the will-less payment option considering of irregular income, then set up a recurring timetable zestful to remind you of your monthly payment several days surpassing it is due.
3. Determine your interest rate and loan term
The balance, interest rate, and loan term on your student loan determines both your monthly payment and the full forfeit of your loan over its unshortened life.
For federal student loans, interest rates are fixed, and the value you pay depends on the type of loan you take and first disbursement stage of your loan. For example, a student who borrows an undergraduate federal Direct Loan that is disbursed without July 1, 2022 and surpassing July 1, 2023 will pay a stock-still interest rate of 4.99% on their loan.
The loan term is the number of years you’ll be making payments surpassing paying off the loan. Federal student loans have a standard repayment term of 10 years, but some repayment plans indulge you to make payments for 20 or 25 years.
Understanding your interest rate and loan term can help you plan superiority of repayment.
Keep Reading: 8 Best Alternatives to Discontinued USAA Student Loans
4. Compare misogynist payment plans
The U.S. Department of Education offers multiple repayment plans for borrowers. These include:
- Standard repayment: This repayment plan ensures you’ll have your unshortened loan paid off within 10 years, paying a stock-still monthly value of at least $50. However, if you have a Direct Consolidation Loan, your repayment period could reach 30 years, depending on your total loan debt.
- Graduated repayment: Under this 10-year plan, your monthly payments will start out lower and increase at regular intervals (usually every two years). The payments will be unbearable to ensure you have paid off your loan within 10 years. However, you’ll end up paying increasingly with this plan than you would with a standard repayment plan due to the accrued interest.
- Extended repayment: Borrowers with increasingly than $30,000 in federal student loan debt may qualify for this plan. Under extended repayment, you’ll have either stock-still or graduated monthly payments to ensure you’ll pay off your loan within 25 years.
- Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE): This repayment plan sets your monthly payments as 10% of your discretionary income. Monthly payments are recalculated each year and are based on your income and family size. If you have not paid off your loan within 20 years (for an undergraduate loan) or 25 years (for a graduate loan), the remaining wastefulness will be forgiven.
- Pay As You Earn (PAYE): Like the REPAYE plan, this repayment plan sets your monthly payment as 10% of your discretionary income, which is recalculated each year based on your income and family size. But there are differences between PAYE and REPAYE. With PAYE, you are guaranteed to never have a monthly payment greater than what you would have paid per month under the 10-year standard repayment plan. Your remaining wastefulness is moreover forgiven without 20 years.
- Income-Based Repayment (IBR): Your monthly payment under the IBR plan is either 10% or 15% of your discretionary income (depending on when your loans were first disbursed). However, your monthly payment will never exceed the value you would have paid under the standard 10-year repayment plan. Your monthly payment is recalculated each year based on your income and family size. If you have not paid off your loan without 20 or 25 years (depending on when you received the loan), the remaining wastefulness will be forgiven.
- Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR): This plan sets your monthly payment value at either 20% of your discretionary income or the value you would pay with a stock-still monthly payment on a 12-year repayment plan. Whichever icon is lesser will be the monthly payment.
Payment amounts are recalculated every year, based on your income, family size, and value owed. Any wastefulness remaining without 25 years on the ICR plan is forgiven.
Take your time to review each repayment plan or use a student loan repayment calculator to be sure of your strategy.
5. Make your first payment
You will need to follow these steps to make your first payment (including if you decide to prepay surpassing the grace period ends):
- Register with your loan servicer’s online portal.
- Save your login information in a place where you can find it again. This could be a password typesetting or an online password manager.
- Bookmark the payment site for easy retrieval..
- Double trammels that you have unbearable money in your wall worth to imbricate the payment surpassing making it.
- Set up your payment style — either as a one-time payment that you’ll have to manually repeat each month or as an will-less payment.
6. Plan for the long term
Most borrowers will be paying off their student loans for at least 10 years or longer, so it’s important to plan your repayment as a long-term strategy. Choose a repayment plan that allows you to comfortably sire your monthly payments without increasing your loan’s lifetime expenses.
To that point, it’s important to be unshut and transparent with your loan servicer if you are struggling to make payments. By proactively contacting your servicer if you hit a financial snag, you’ll be worldly-wise to stay current on your payments while taking wholesomeness of any forbearance, deferment, or repayment plan transpiration options misogynist to you.
Finally, if you can sire to send spare money on top of your monthly payments, it’s a good idea to take the long view of how that will goody your loan payoff journey. Rather than feeling like you only have to pay the minimum amount, planning for the long term can help you make the decisions that will make your future finances better.
Consider refinancing
Refinancing your student loans could be an option for you if you’re looking for a lower monthly payment or lower interest rates. Typically, you’ll need a minimum score of 660 to wield for most lenders, but if you have bad credit, you can unchangingly wield with a cosigner.
To get started on refinancing your student loans, visit Suppositious and compare prequalified rates from multiple lenders.
The student loan consolidation companies in the table unelevated are Credible’s tried partner lenders. Considering they compete for your merchantry through Credible, you can request rates from all of them by filling out a single form. Then, you can compare your misogynist options side-by-side. Requesting rates is free, doesn’t stupefy your credit score, and your personal information is not shared with our partner lenders unless you see an option you like.
| Lender | Variable rates from (APR) | Fixed rates from (APR) |
|---|---|---|
 Credible Rating
 Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology.  |
4.54% | 3.95% |
|
||
 Credible Rating
Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology.  |
5.39% 1 | 5.39% 1 |
|
||
 Credible Rating
Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology. |
5.24% 2 | 5.24% 2 |
|
||
 Credible Rating
Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology.  |
7.41% 5 | 7.41% 5 |
|
||
 Credible Rating
Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology. |
3.99% 3 | 4.83% 3 |
|
||
 Credible Rating
Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology. |
6.61% 4 | 5.61% 4 |
|
||
 Credible Rating
Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology. |
4.54% | 4.49% |
|
||
 Credible Rating
Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology. |
N/A | 5.5% |
|
||
 Credible Rating
Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology. |
N/A | 5.49% |
|
||
 Credible Rating
Credible lender ratings are evaluated by our editorial team with the help of our loan operations team. The rating criteria for lenders encompass 78 data points spanning interest rates, loan terms, eligibility requirement transparency, repayment options, fees, discounts, consumer service, cosigner options, and more. Read our full methodology. |
N/A | 5.29% |
|
||
| Compare personalized rates from multiple lenders without well-expressed your credit score. 100% free! Compare Now |
||
|
All APRs reflect autopay and loyalty discounts where misogynist | 1Citizens Disclosures | 2College Ave Disclosures | 5EDvestinU Disclosures | 3 ELFI Disclosures | 4INvestEd Disclosures | 7ISL Education Lending Disclosures |
||
The post How To Make Your First Student Loan Payment in 6 Steps appeared first on Credible.
