hypermeta - Some stuff I’ve found on the internet re: paying off student loans

December 22, 2011

Some stuff I’ve found on the internet re: paying off student loans

[I]n the US, Income-Based Repayment has existed since 2009 (pursuant to the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007) and caps Federal student loan payments at 15% of discretionary income, with forgiveness after 25 years. See 34 CFR 682.215 and 685.221 (here: http://cl.ly/BMDd).

The President’s announcement will speed up statutory changes that are due to take place in 2014 pursuant to 20 USC 1098e(e) (here: http://cl.ly/BLlT).

The US Department of Education has had a similar repayment plan around, called Income-Contingent Repayment, for a fair bit longer. See 34 CFR 685.209 (here:http://cl.ly/BLM3).

via The Economist: Re: The indebted ones

Look into consolidating your loans and then get into the Promise Program. It is a loan forgiveness program through Direct Loan Consolidation. You must work in a public sector job eg. teaching in public school, work for non-profit or governmental agency for 10 years. The trick is to consolidate, get an Income Based or Income Contingent payment plan and be on-time with all 120 payments. This is a new program that came out about 2007 or 2008, so you will have to do some investigative work to learn more about it. It is not available through Sallie Mae. Go to www.dl.ed.gov to learn more.