Tips To Manage Your Student Loan Debt by Student Loan Consolidation Expert Bruce Mesnekoff

Repayment Programs (Income-Based) -If your payments on eligible federal student loans are in excess of 15% of your earnings above 150% of the poverty level under a 10-year standard repayment plan, you may be eligible for an income-based repayment program. Under this program, your outstanding loan balance may be forgiven after 25 years of qualifying repayment.

Pay As You Earn (PAYE) : As Bruce Mesnekoff said PAY As YOU Earn also caps repayments based on your income, and will forgive outstanding federal student loans after 20 years. Under PAYE, payments must exceed 10% of what you earn above 150% of the poverty level under a standard 10-year repayment plan.

To be eligible, you must have taken your first federal loan after September 30, 2007 and at least one loan after September 30, 2011.

Loan Forgiveness After Joining Public Services – According to Bruce Mesnekoff certain federal loans may be forgiven after 10 years of qualifying payments if you take a job with federal, state or local government, a non-profit and other public service organizations, this will be best way to get forgiveness from Federal Loans.

Work as Volunteer to Get Benefits -There are a number of programs, e.g., AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, the military, in which service will accrue a benefit that reduces an outstanding loan balance in an amount that varies depending upon the program.

Pre-Pay Principal Amount – According to Bruce Mesnekoff Pre-payment of principal may help lower the lifetime interest costs of a loan. To raise cash to fund pre-payments, one idea is to ask that birthday and holiday gifts be cash and direct any raises, bonuses or overtime pay to pre-payments. If you do pre-pay principal, be sure to target the loans with the highest rate of interest.

Loan Consolidation -You can consolidate your federal loans through the Direct Loan program At Student Loan Help Center, or through a private lender if you have private loans or consult with student loan consolidation expert Bruce Mesnekoff . However, this may only make sense if you can obtain an overall lower interest rate.

Tips given above are just for informational purposes only, and should not be considered a substitute for a more comprehensive student loan evaluation.