So for context my loans come out of their grace period next month. I figured it would be easier to track one loan than multiple so I consolidated them. I remember selecting a plan to have after it was consolidated and the loan calculator stating my monthly payment would be zero (I qualify for PSLF since I work for a nonprofit). However, I got an email from my loan servicer stating my next payment would be in March and is $300. Is this due to my loans not being consolidated yet? Or did I royally screw myself?
I should also note that I have yet to submit the paperwork for the PSLF portion as every time I’ve tried to do so, the website tells me my loans are currently in grace.
So should I wait till my loans are consolidated next month and then go back to check everything is correct? Or do I need to take action now before I get into a debt hole I can’t escape? I only make $40k a year and with other bills and such I CANNOT afford an extra $300 a month payment.
I consolidated my loans -did I mess up?
byu/uwububbles inStudentLoans
Posted by uwububbles
4 Comments
Your payment amount will be based on which repayment plan you are on. PSLF is not a repayment plan.
An income driven repayment plan like PAYE or IBR sounds like it would be the right answer for you.
You should start by figuring out what payment plan you’re on. Log into studentaid.gov and see what it says. If you’re on one of the income driven repayment plans, your payment is based on your income. Whether or not you’re pursuing PLSF doesn’t matter when it comes to your monthly payment calculation. The $300 payment amount you’re seeing could be the standard payment plan amount still – sometimes they’ll send that out while a consolidation is still being processed and before your income driven repayment plan amount has been calculated. If you share approximately how much your income is we’d be able to tell you whether a $0 monthly payment makes sense or not.
Your reason for Consolidating makes zero sense to me. The loans would have been handled by one servicer and with PSLF it’s based on years of payments anyways. There are no individual loans to track and would have been administratively combined as one payment regardless.
Consolidation forced your loans to exit their grace period early and into repayment.