High student loan payments

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice because I feel stuck between a few tough options.

I currently have student loan payments of $2,800 per month with sallie mae (11.5% interest, very high i know) with the next payment due in about a month. My income does not comfortably cover this payment, so I would have to rely on savings to stay current. I've called sallie mae and they weren't able to offer any repayment help options.

Right now I have about $7,000 saved. My original plan was to save up to ~$10k to buy a cash car, since I don’t want a car payment and need reliable transportation. However, if I use my savings to get a head start for the loan, that would only cover about 2 months of payments and leave me with very little emergency buffer (although i would use the buffer to continue to save for more upcoming payments)

I tried to refinance since the interest is so high but unfortunately but my credit score is currently too low to qualify. My hope was that making consistent payments for some months (maybe 6?) might improve my credit enough to refinance later but i'm not sure if this is too ambitious.

One option I’m considering is temporarily deferring the loans by enrolling in college credits, which (from what I understand) would put the loans back into in-school deferment. This would give me time to stabilize, keep savings intact, and avoid missed payments, though I know interest would still accrue. My biggest goal this year was to buy a car this year since I haven't had one for a while so it puts a bit of emotion into the decision.