How to tame your student loans (told in fewer than 350 words)
We鈥檇 keep it to 35 words if we could, but student loans aren鈥檛 that simple.
So we鈥檒l aim for 350 instead, boiling it down to the four main options for dealing with student debt. And since there鈥檚 no one-size-fits-all solution, we call out聽who will benefit most from each approach. Which best matches you?
Ditch some debt through聽.
(For public service workers.)
Certain lucky humans, including government and nonprofit employees, qualify for federal loan forgiveness after they make payments for a certain聽amount of time. You can also get forgiveness if you pay on an income-driven repayment plan for 20 or 25 years.
Lower your payments with an聽.
(For people struggling to make ends meet.)
When you鈥檙e living paycheck to paycheck or somewhere close to that, these federal repayment plans can be a godsend. They cap your monthly payment at a percentage of your income and sometimes offer loan forgiveness. In return, you pay more interest than you otherwise would.
Stick to the standard 10-year plan.
(For basic borrowers.)
It may be the least flashy option, but it鈥檚 also the easiest. The standard 10-year repayment plan is your best choice if you have federal loans and don鈥檛 qualify for forgiveness. You鈥檒l pay less in interest than you would on an income-driven plan.
聽to get a lower interest rate.
(For people with stellar credit scores.)
You have nothing to lose by refinancing if you have private loans. If you have federal loans, triple-check that the forgiveness or repayment paths aren鈥檛 for you, because you鈥檒l lose those options when you refinance. To qualify for refinancing, you typically need a high credit score and more than an entry-level salary.
That鈥檚 as concise as we could get without resorting to emojis. To dive deeper, check out NerdWallet鈥檚聽.
Teddy Nykiel is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email:聽teddy@nerdwallet.com. Twitter:聽.
This story originally appeared on .
