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Difficulty Making Your Payments?

Change Your Repayment Plan

Need lower monthly payments? Determine if your income and family size will lower your monthly payment by using our Repayment Plan Evaluator. You may qualify for a payment as low as $0 on an Income Driven Repayment Plan. What you ultimately pay depends on the plan you choose and when you borrowed. You can switch to a different plan at any time to suit your needs and goals.


Repayment Plans:

Regular Repayment Plans Income-Driven Repayment Plans (IDR)
Standard*: Fixed Income Based (IBR)*: Generally 10% or 15% of discretionary income
Graduated: Low then increasing every 2 years Income-Contingent (ICR)*: Generally 20% or less of discretionary income
Extended Repayment: Fixed or
Graduated for up to 25 years		 Pay As You Earn (PAYE)*: Generally 10% of discretionary income
Saving on a Valuable Education
(SAVE, formerly the REPAYE Program)*: Generally 10% of discretionary income

* In general, plans qualify towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). For more PSLF information visit studentaid.ed.gov. For the Standard plan this must be a 10-year plan, however no balance may be left to forgive, therefore this is not a good plan for PSLF.


Change Your Payment Due Date

Is your student loan payment due before you get paid? Changing your due date to another date within the month may be a solution (excludes the 29th through 31st ). If requested and approved, please allow up to two additional billing cycles to complete the change and be aware that your payment amount may change. In some instances, this may cause you to pay more interest over the life of the loan.


Temporarily Postpone or Lower Monthly Payments

Determine if your income and family size will lower your monthly payment by using our Repayment Plan Evaluator. You may qualify for a payment as low as $0 on an Income Driven Repayment Plan.

If you prefer to stay on your current repayment plan and are unable to make payments right now, you may have options to temporarily postpone payments if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Depending on the type of loan you have and the postponement option, interest may continue to accrue and capitalize (be added to the principal balance) when the option ends. Explore My Situation to find out more about these options.


Possible Reasons to Temporarily Postpone Payments
(Other Reasons MAY be Acceptable)

  • Americorps/Peace Corps

  • Cancer Treatment

  • Department of Defense Repayment Program

  • Economic Hardship/Financial Difficulties

  • Graduate Fellowship

  • In-School

  • Medical/Dental Internship

  • Medical Expenses

  • Military/National Guard/Post Active Duty

  • Natural Disaster

  • Rehabilitation Training

  • Reduced Payment

  • Student Loan Debt Burden

  • Teacher Loan Forgiveness

  • Unemployment/Change in Employment


Making Payments

Payments can be made online, by phone, using a bill pay service, Auto Debit (provides a .25% interest rate reduction), or by mail. The payment address may be different based upon your account type. Log in and go to Contact Us for your payment address.

Always include your MOHELA account number when making payments. Do Not Send Cash. All payments must be drawn in U.S. currency on U.S. financial institutions or TD Bank.


Discharge/Forgiveness/Cancellation

Specific circumstances may result in some or all of your loans being forgiven through Student Loan Forgiveness. In most instances, you must repay your loan(s) even if you did not complete your education, are unable to find a job related to your program of study, or are unhappy with the education you received.


Possible Reasons for Discharge/Forgiveness/Cancellation

  • Bankruptcy (in rare cases)

  • Borrower Defense to Repayment

  • Closed School

  • Death (including student of a Parent Plus loan)

  • Income Driven Repayment

  • Loan Falsely Certified

  • School Refund Required but Not Made After Withdrawal

  • Teacher (Low-Income School or Educational Service Agency)

  • Totally and Permanently Disabled

  • Working in Public Service (i.e. Government employee, Not-for-Profit etc.)


Consolidate Your Loans

Do you have multiple student loans servicers? Simplify the repayment process with a Direct Consolidation Loan allowing you to combine all of your federal student loans into one loan for one monthly payment. However, there may be tradeoffs. Learn more about Consolidation, the possible advantages and disadvantages, before you consolidate.


Questions?

For more information and to select a different repayment plan call 888.866.4352, visit our Info Center or the U.S. Department of Education’s website at StudentAid.gov.