Ways To Eliminate Student Loan Debt

The hard part of dealing with student loan debt isn’t making payments on it. The hard part is navigating the complex world that is the student loan repayment system. There are multiple repayment plans, student loan forgiveness programs, different options offered by each state, and more. In this article, we will talk about how 8 ways to eliminate student loan debts to help you lead a debt-free life.

Table of Content

1.What is Student Loan Debt?

2.How are Student Loan Debt

3.How to Eliminate Student Loan Debts

4.Conclusion

What is Student Loan Debt?

Student debt is a form of debt that is owed by an attending, formerly withdrawn, or graduated student to a lending institution, or to a financial institution. The lent amount, often referred to as a student loan or the debts may be owed to the school if the student has dropped classes and withdrawn from the school, or if the student has graduated but is underemployed.

How are student loan debts created?

Student Loan debts are created when you take up federal loans and private loans from federal and private lenders respectively. The Debts are created when you take a loan and are not able to pay on time or defaulted on your loan.

This condition arises when:

When you are bankrupt
When the loan interest is high
When the due date has passed

8 Ways You Can Quit Paying Your Student Loans

Enroll in income-driven repayment
Pursue a career in public service
Apply for disability discharge
Investigate loan repayment assistance programs
Ask your employer
Serve your country
Play a game
File for bankruptcy

Worried about your college tution? Find the best student loan for you

How to eliminate the student loan debts ?

1.Qualify For A Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Program

The first way to eliminate your student loan debt applies to people with Federal student loans. These are student loans that are typically handled by the Department of Education or one of the student loan servicing companies. These include many different student loan programs handled by the Federal government.There are three major, and several smaller student loan forgiveness programs. The most popular Federal student loan forgiveness program is Public Service Loan Forgiveness. This program offers student loan forgiveness to people who work in public service for 10 years. Public service not only includes government jobs, but it also includes many non-profit jobs, education jobs, and service jobs like law enforcement or public safety.

2.Find State Assistance For Your Student Loans

Many states also offer various student loan forgiveness programs for your student loans. 46 out of 50 states offer at least one program, with some states offering many different programs to cover a wide variety of loan types, employment, and more. In fact, Kansas offers student loan forgiveness of up to $15,000 for just living in certain parts of the state.

3.Find Out If Your Employer Offers Tuition Reimbursement

Did you know that more and more employers are offering tuition reimbursement to help their employees pay for school. It’s one of the ways that I paid for school – because I worked full time while getting my college degree. Some companies, like Starbucks, even offer their employees full degree programs as part of their employee benefits.Even better, some companies are now offering their employees Student Loan Repayment Programs – where the company is paying off portions of their employee’s student loan debt.

4.Consolidate Your Federal Student Loans

The next option to try to help you eliminate your student loan debt is to consolidate your Federal student loans. Now, while consolidation by itself won’t help you lower your payments or your student loan balance, what it will allow you to do is to be financially organized.When you start college before your Freshman year, you’ve likely already signed up for your first student loan.

5.Find A Repayment Plan That Matches Your Ability To Pay

The next step in eliminating your student loan debt is to find a repayment plan that matches your ability to pay. After you graduate, you are automatically enrolled in the Standard Repayment Plan. This is 10 years of even payments – which may not work for all borrowers. The trouble is, many graduates don’t know that they can change this plan– they just assume they are stuck with that student loan payment.If you have Federal student loans, there are many repayment plans that could help you make your student loan debt more manageable – which, in turn, will help you eliminate your debt faster.

6.Setup An Income-Based Repayment Plan With Loan Forgiveness

When selecting a repayment plan, if any of the above Standard options still don’t work, Federal loans offer income-based repayment plans. There are several versions of this, but the most popular are Income-Based Repayment (IBR) and Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE).The great thing about IBR and PAYE is that they offer a “secret” benefit – student loan forgiveness. Many people don’t realize that both of these plans offer student loan forgiveness at the end of the repayment term. Any remaining balance on the loan will be forgiven, but unlike the other Federal student loan forgiveness plans, you will owe taxes on the amount forgiven.

7.Refinance Your Student Loans

If you have private student loans, the best way to start eliminating this debt is to refinance your private loans at a lower interest rate. This will not only save you money in interest over the life of the loan, but it will also lower your payment up front.One of the best tricks is to refinance your student loans at a lower payment, but continue paying your previous payment amount. This could potentially shave years off your loan, saving you hundreds or thousands of dollars.

8.Earn More Money

Finally, if none of these options work (or none of them totally eliminate your student loan debt), the next best thing you can do is earn more money. I’m a firm believer that everyone can earn an extra $100 per month if they try to. That extra $100 per month can be applied to your student loan debt, eliminating $1,200 per year from your loan balance.

Conclusion

So using these 8 steps you can eliminate the student loan debts.It may sound counter intuitive, but earning more is a great way to pay off student loan debt. In fact, the aspiration to earn more money was probably the reason you went to school and took out student loans to begin with.

It is always to be well aware of all your student loan repayment options so,that you can take control of your repayment phase.