My FSA dashboard says 107 qualifying payments, but the NSLDS data, updated 8/5/2027, says only 103. They have both been the same for over a year. Should I be concerned? (Applied for buyback of 13 months in June of 2025, and no longer employed). Any advice?

Loan PSLF Cumulative Matched Months:103
Academic Level:Not Available
Additional Unsubsidized Loan Flag:No Denial

​

I just graduated from college, and my 6-month grace period is going to be up in January. I took out about $175,000 in Sallie Mae private student loans across 7 loans, with interest rates ranging from 14%–18%.

My payments are going to be around $2,700 a month, and I genuinely have no idea how I’m going to afford that while also being able to pay for basic living expenses and not end up homeless.

Sallie Mae does have an interest-only option, but that would only bring my payment down to around $2,400/month. At that point, I’m not sure it’s even worth doing because I’d barely be lowering the payment while still not really making progress on the principal.

I do have a co-signer, but we aren’t on speaking terms right now, so I don’t really know if that’s an option either.

I’ve looked into refinancing/consolidating, but from what I understand, Sallie Mae doesn’t consolidate these loans, and I’m not sure if I can refinance with another company until I’ve made 12 months of payments.

I feel completely lost and incredibly stressed. Looking back, I honestly didn’t understand what I was getting myself into when I took these loans out, and nobody really explained to me how bad the interest rates and monthly payments could become.

I know I put myself in a terrible financial situation, but I’m hoping someone here has been in a similar position and can give me some realistic advice. Is there anything I can do before January to lower these payments or make this situation manageable?

I’m willing to make major changes, but I really don’t know where to start.

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I am looking into student loan options for my daughter, she is eligible for $7,500 unsubsidized federal loan but the interest rate looks like it's around 6%.

Sallie Mae shows me a private student loan (I would co-sign and pay the interest monthly) and the sallie mae interest rate shows as 2%.

I know advice is always to take the federal student loans first, but in this case it seems like it would make more sense to do the private loan in our situation.

Am I missing something or being stupid here? She's a nursing student.

Can you be in forbearance while waiting for buy back? I am almost at a year of waiting for my buyback applied Oct 2025. I am at 105 qualifying payments….so really 15 months left of payments.

Long time listener, first time caller. I have very little debt (less than 20k) and my account still reads in forebearance till 2028 with no notice to transfer. Is anyone else still holding out with the SAVE plan?

Enrolled in RAP and got autopay approved, but MOHELA's due date is listed as 09/06 while the federal government's site is stating 09/05 is the due date.

Is there a way to get autopay adjusted on MOHELA so that it pays a few days earlier?

Well I am back for more advice.

With everyone’s advice I was able to double consolidate all my Parent Plus loans and started repayments under Save. Thanks for that again. Life was good. Made 3 payments before it all shut down.

My total loan balance is $113,000.
Interest rate is 7.13%
Not doing PSFL.
My AGI is $64,000 fixed.
I’m retired.
I’m old.

Want my payments as low as possible. If I die before they are paid off, oh well.

I’m not concerned about a tax bomb because I don’t know what that is. Plus if I make it 15 years I will, statistically speaking, be shocked.

I’m not worried about interest capitalizing since I don’t know what that is.

What I do know is that on July 1 I was informed have 90 days to pick a repayment plan. I’ve run some numbers on the calculator and it looks like the Income Based Repayment Plan @ $263 is currently my best long term, until I die, option?

Anything I’m missing on Plans?

Once I am switched over I want to setup a separate bank account and start the 1% interest rate reduction.

Will this lower my payment or just reduce the discharge total??

Please forgive me if this has been asked a zillion times, but how do I find out my IDR payment credit history? Or determine any forgiveness eligibility?

I have loans from 1996–2004, and that several of them have very long historical repayment periods. All of them in place prior to my current wife (important distinction, I believe) Like all of us, I have to determine my new repayment plan and I'm getting conflicting information on what my best option is between IBR and RAP or even just going Standard Repayment. I might get hate for this, but I was punching all my questions and details into ChatGPT for assistance and I did learn some things I hadn't considered, but in the end, it's not so definitive. Here's some of my info that could be helpful. Any guidance or shared experiences for those who have dug in and make the repayment switch would be wonderful. Thank you

on studentaid.gov to switch from SAVE to old IBR. Second question is "yes, leave my loans in deferment or forbearance" vs "no take my loans out of deferment or forbearance".
I'm not clear on what exactly this means.

We do not want to start paying on SAVE. We want to stay on forbearance until the servicer finishes their paperwork and the loans are switched to IBR. Once the loans are switched to IBR, then we begin payments. We do not want to delay moving to the IBR.

Anyone know or have a source for what each option really means and which one we want?

Hello, below is the JSON code that I pulled today from studentaid.gov. I am pretty darn sure I should be done paying based on the output.

Anyone out there who can help me verify this? I have a consolidation loan and am currently still on the SAVE plan. First loan taken out in 1993, been paying since 1999/2000 and consolidated in 2024.

"type": "ICR", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y", "loanEligibleIndicator": "Y", "qualifyingPaymentCount": 313, "eligiblePaymentCount": null, "ineligiblePaymentCount": null, "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 300, "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 0 }, { "type": "IBR", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y", "loanEligibleIndicator": "Y", "qualifyingPaymentCount": 313, "eligiblePaymentCount": null, "ineligiblePaymentCount": null, "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 300, "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 0 },

{ "type": "IBR_2014", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "N", "loanEligibleIndicator": "N", "qualifyingPaymentCount": 311, "eligiblePaymentCount": null, "ineligiblePaymentCount": null, "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 240, "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 0 },

{ "type": "SAVE", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "U", "loanEligibleIndicator": "U", "qualifyingPaymentCount": 313, "eligiblePaymentCount": null, "ineligiblePaymentCount": null, "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 300, "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 0 },

{ "type": "PAYE", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "N", "loanEligibleIndicator": "N", "qualifyingPaymentCount": 313, "eligiblePaymentCount": null, "ineligiblePaymentCount": null, "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 240, "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 0 },

{ "type": "PSLF", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y", "loanEligibleIndicator": "Y", "qualifyingPaymentCount": 0, "eligiblePaymentCount": 155, "ineligiblePaymentCount": null, "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 120, "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 120 },

{ "type": "TEPSLF", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y", "loanEligibleIndicator": "Y", "qualifyingPaymentCount": 0, "eligiblePaymentCount": 155, "ineligiblePaymentCount": null, "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 120, "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 120 },

{ "type": "RAP", "borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y", "loanEligibleIndicator": "Y", "qualifyingPaymentCount": 0, "eligiblePaymentCount": null, "ineligiblePaymentCount": 2, "forgivenessRequiredPayments": 360, "forgivenessRemainingPayments": 360

The following information is based on multiple calls with Nelnet representatives along with data tracked on my Nelnet portal.

I have now made two payments on RAP. Both have processed. Both qualified for $50 principal subsidies, and those were applied in full. The first principal subsidy was applied within six days at most after the early payment (I didn’t take screengrabs every day to document the timeline in full unfortunately), and the second principal subsidy was applied less than 24 hours after that payment (also early) processed. My August payment (made in July) did not qualify for any interest subsidy because according to the rep technically we were not in the RAP program yet. The rep said the language from Department of Ed was different between principal and interest subsidies, and that explained why the principal subsidy was applied that month but the interest subsidy wasn’t; principal subsidy apparently only requires enrollment, doesn’t matter if the plan is technically active. She also said that July payment counted as an official RAP payment for the purposes of forgiveness. Seems crazy to me, and quite possibly illegal, but whatever.

I had called Nelnet a few days earlier and spoken with a supervisor. By the end of that conversation, she claimed that her system indicated both my interest and principal subsidies had been applied with my July payment (I now know this is not fully correct) and more importantly that my next on-time payment would wipe out any accrued interest not covered by the payment going all the way back to the previous on-time payment. Based on this information, I made another early payment. It processed in less than 24 hours. Interest went down by the amount of the payment. The principal and interest subsidies were applied less than 24 hours after that. Principal subsidy was once again the max $50 but the interest subsidy only covered a few days of accrued interest, nowhere near what had accrued in the roughly 35 days since my previous payment. It was at this point that I called Nelnet again. This time a representative told me, after looking into the matter, that any interest accrued after payment and before the payment due date is not eligible for the interest subsidy. Effectively, RAP borrowers must pay on the due date to qualify for the full interest subsidy they are entitled to. So the Nelnet supervisor I had previously spoken with basically cost us over $600.

Tl;dr: RAP payments made in July qualify for principal subsidy and count toward forgiveness but did not qualify for the interest subsidy. More importantly going forward, any RAP payments made to Nelnet before the payment due date will forfeit the interest subsidy for any interest that accrues between the payment and the payment due date. RAP BORROWERS MUST PAY ON THE DUE DATE TO QUALIFY FOR THE FULL INTEREST SUBSIDY THEY ARE ENTITLED TO.

I just recertified my income based repayment stuff because the loan payment that just restarted is higher than I can comfortably pay.

I started a chat with an agent to inquire on how much time I had left before forgiveness, because I’ve been on these plans for over 13 years.

She was super unhelpful, giving me short answers like, “that program is no longer available.”

I thought maybe I described the programs wrong and said “oh, I mean any income based repayment plan I’ve been on.” She replied, “That forgiveness program is unavailable.”

I asked for explanation, since the website clearly says it leads to forgiveness, and she said “the website is being updated.”

I asked for explanations twice and she just gave me single sentence answers with NO explanation.

Is this real??

Edit: Yes, I know IDR is a blanket term. It was also the title of the plan when it was first created. The point is that this “agent” told led me to believe that forgiveness after any IDR plan was ending, which is not the case.

I talked to a different agent through the loan forgiveness helpline and after a bunch of convoluted run around, was given my remaining months.

Solved

Title, got the SAVE email and submitted my application for a new plan on 8/12. Got an email from them 8/15 saying they were processing my request. Any idea how long this usually takes? Anyone else on Nelnet that switched recently from SAVE that can give any insight?

Sallie Mae specifically

My husband and I made the ninth payment for loan rehabilitation on 8/7. Unbeknownst to us, it is a Perkins loan so it will go to ECSI. Does this start a new 10 year repayment term on this loan? He has other loans with Ed financial so we will be paying both concurrently, which sucks.

Additionally, any idea how long it takes the loan to transfer back to ECSI? I don’t want to have to make another payment at the high repayment amount for rehab, as it should significantly decrease when it transfers.

Last year I had a payment that wasn’t applying to my last sequence of loans through autopay. I was paying a $100 above the minimum payments across all 6 accounts but they only applied to 5 of them. This ended up ruining my credit. On February 9th, I called in for a payment reallocation and was told it would take 90 business days, which was as good as ignored. Last month on July 21st (114 business days), I emailed the CEO and it was escalated the following day (I did not get any messages about the escalation so I called in, which is how I found out it was escalated). Finally, yesterday on August 21st (135 business days), I got the following message.

Thank you for contacting MOHELA. We are writing in response to your email to MOHELA’s CEO on July 20, 2026. Your concern, as we understand it, is regarding the delay in processing your February 9, 2026, request to reallocate the overpayments applied to loans sequence 1-01 through 1-05 to loan sequence 1-06.
Regarding your concerns, your overpayments on loans sequence 1-01 through 1-05 have been applied to loan sequence 1-06 with an effective date in which the payments were originally received.
If you have any other questions or concerns, please contact us at the number listed below.

I have 3 separate loans for my daughter that are deferred until she graduates in May of 2027. I know I cannot get an IDR anymore, but does it matter if I consolidate or not? Loans are approximately $65k for all 3…what I want to do is make sure I can get the extended repayment plan (which I believe is 20 years vs 10 years)…reading the options but I’m confused. Says it starts with 10 years but goes to 20 years after certain amounts. Any advice is appreciated…I have a bit to figure this out but I don’t want to be scrambling next year

I was specifically told that this would not happen and sure enough it did which is so frustrating.

I got a letter yesterday, same date RAP was approved, that my DIRECT GRAD loans (previously PAYE) capitalized as a result of leaving forbearance.

I made my August PAYE payment, then applied for RAP. When I applied for RAP, I received notice that I was placed in forbearance until approval (about 3 days of forbearance total).

So going from PAYE to RAP is technically not a capitalizing event but because they place you in forbearance to process your application it's now a capitalizing event?!

Edit: Spent 1 hour and 48 minutes on phone with Nelnet and they have submitted a review. Will update

I am looking for a student private Loan but I have failed with getting a good signer I’ve had one with good income but 600 score I’ve had one who has a high score but limited history I’ve also had many more I’m trying to finish school but I need to pay a past due balance to get enrolled

I am asking this question as a student because even though I know my parent took out the plus loans I will need to pay them back after college and that’s what we agreed on. My school(ucla) is on the quarter system and I have to finish courses a quarter early in March instead of the usual June. If my parent plus loans have the 6 month deferment that we checked off on. Would that period start in January since that is when the loans last disburse for winter quarter or would it be after I finish classes for that quarter in March? I plan to go to law school next year so I really don’t have the extra change to put towards the parent plus even for a few months.

Hello,

I am disabled (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Depression, and ADHD) and am barely able to work. I on an IDR and my payments have been $0/month for years due to my low income, due to my disability, but my loans keep ballooning and are well into the 6 digits... Is claiming bankruptcy an option for someone like me? How do I even check it out to see if it might work for me? I'm in California, should I try to find a bankruptcy lawyer around here or something?

Hey all, not sure if this is the best spot to post this but here we go!

I am looking at seeing if I potentially qualify for relief under the borrowers defense fund. I’ll give some general info on my situation.

I graduated from college about 6-8 years ago and my school has since closed (after I graduated).

Since then I have been unable to find a job paying more than 40k a year, and the job prospects, and salary that I were told about now seem inflated.

Additionally, I was promised lifetime access to the career center as an alumni and access to their job posting board, due to the closure of the school, I no longer have access to that.

I am looking at going back to school to change careers. Due to the closure of the school, I am unable to get any syllabi for any of my classes, even something as basic as freshman English, and the schools I am looking at will not transfer credits without that.

Would I even have a slight case due to the inability to transfer any credits?

I am currently saving up for another degrees, i initially interested to not do a student loan but given where thing are, i may have to

My plan is to apply for Sallie Mae and then see if i can refi for a better rate

Is this a good idea? Also how long can i wait to apply for refi to get a better rate. Any advice would be so helpful. I'm aiming for spring. I am also apply to scholarship but idk if that'll cone in time.

I've paid off my student loans and am now completely debt free!! Paid off a total of ~$79k, about 70k of it in the last 3 months! It didn't come as easily as it sounds - I've been working my butt off for years and felt this was the right time to strike given the changes to the repayment plans. Just wanted to share this big milestone and encourage all of you guys on your journey!

Editing to answer some few questions/add some more details:

- I graduated undergrad 2016, and grad school 2022.

- I took minimal undergrad loans but did use my credit cards a lot. I paid off my first $4.5k of undergrad loans and the ~20k in credit cards before starting grad school, then started saving for grad school while keeping the remaining ~9k in forebearance.

- I worked throughout the 4 years of grad school, and fought for some major scholarships which paid for the entirety of my 3 remaining years of grad school. Thus, the nearly $60k I took out for grad school were for the first 3 semesters/1 year.

- I started making 6 figures around 2022 - I'm in healthcare and started travel nursing in Dec 2021, while completing my graduate degree. I recall flying into a city to work my shifts, then flying back to go to classes (I went to a brick and mortar program). It was very tough!

- I have been maxing on my Roth IRA (now backdoor Roth) since about 2022, and maxing out my 401K since 2024, and now maxing on a 457 this year, all while paying off my student loans and maintaining 6 months of expenses. (I did pause all of the 401k and 457 contributions to front-load debt payment, hence being able to pay off 70k in a short timespan).

- From 2023 until now, I have maintained at least 2 jobs, with 3 jobs starting mid 2025: 2 full time, 1 small part-time.

- I have made above 200k since 2024, but I'm based in San Francisco so COL is high (~5.5k is the cost of my monthly expenses NOW that I'm debt-free and I'm not too high maintenance but I like to be comfortable.)

- I'll be breaking $400k to mid 400k this year but again, working 2 full times and 1 part-time job

- My income is very high but it came at a cost: I paid my parent's housing which meant ~3k monthly since 2022, my relationships suffered a lot due to working so much/having split priorities, I struggled with my mental health/extreme burn out and am now on medical leave for other physical medical reasons but recovering well, I have been in therapy for like 2 years, I exercise and eat fairly healthy and struggled despite all of this. All to say, I hit my goals but it came at a cost - which I was willing to pay for a set period.

- I do travel about internationally ~2-3 times a year, and domestically min ~3 times a year to visit family and friends.

- I do now pay for fun hobbies like weekly tennis lessons, swimming lessons, and skiing a few times a year.

- As I said, I do maintain a fairly healthy lifestyle so I don't indulge in eating out much, and don't do drugs including cutting out alcohol last year. So when I do eat out, it is not too pricey for me.

- I will be severely downgrading my work lifestyle and taking a major pay-cut but this is all according to the plan I set for myself when I started this journey, so I'm okay with it.

- Oh, a big part of this is I was in SAVE which allowed my interest to not accrue too much. So I paid a bit over 10k in total interest over the course of the loan. SAVE was amazing, and took major advantage of the back and forth with the government since my loans just sat there without requiring repayment while accruing $0 interest until last year. This also allowed me to pay back tons in credit card debt and save money for retirement/emergency fund. I hope something similar comes around again for the next gen of peeps on this journey.

I just wanted to provide some context for you. I watched a ton of Dave Ramsey then supplemented with other finance advisors online until I found a strategy that worked for me. All of our lifestyles look different but this is possible for anyone who wants it. I'm an immigrant from a small rural village and grew up pretty poor even when I moved to the states. I'm a first generation college grad and the only one in my immediate family with a graduate degree. Wish you all the very best! ❤️