Student loans. The fight which never ends

Many years ago, I decided to continue my education and attend graduate school. I needed student loans to pay for this education. While going to school, I became very sick. I had to drop out. Soon, my student loans were in repayment. After depleting my savings to make loan payments, I discovered there was an income-based repayment program.

 It has been a frequent fight to get my student loans on an income-based repayment plan. I cannot tell you how much stress I have been through trying to get paperwork sorted out and submitted on time over many years.

Thankfully, things have finally been stream-lined. I only have to submit one application a year (instead of three separate applications at three different times during the year to go to three different lenders). I just have to keep track of one application and make sure the application is sent to all three lenders. I then have to wait to hear back from the three lenders if they received the application in their system. I then have to follow up that the correct repayment plan has been applied to my account.

Things became haywire when the government stepped in and paused payments. I needed to re-certify my loans, but the financial institutes would not accept the income-based repayment application because the loans were not in repayment. Despite this, I continued to apply for an income-based repayment program.

In October, loan repayment resumed. Two of my lenders applied my income-based repayment plan. One lender, however, did not. The amount I owe per month is nearly my entire monthly income.

I spent almost an hour on hold this morning. I explained to the woman I am on an income-based repayment plan. The woman said she saw in the system I was on an income-based repayment plan. The amount owed was the amount which was calculated from the income-based repayment plan. I explained, the amount owed is nearly my entire monthly income. This is not an income-base repayment.

Furthermore, I have loans at two other lenders. I am on the same repayment program. Because my income is very low, my repayment is zero dollars. The woman said she would investigate. While waiting on a hold, the call disconnected.

I called back again. This time, the wait was over an hour. The second representative said my payment plan was based on 2021 taxes. My taxable income was $0 in 2021. The woman looked at my income-based repayment application from this year which had my taxes from 2022. Again, my taxable income was $0. The woman told me I needed to have my income recalculated.

(I remained silent. but I wanted to say, “Recalculated? My taxable income went form $0 to $0. There is nothing to ‘recalculate’ My income has not changed. And if my repayment is based on 2021 taxes, how can a person owe anything when his taxable income is zero dollars?”)

The woman submitted a “recalculated” income-based repayment request. The preliminary feedback was that I would owe $0. However, the application has to be processed by the company. It will take “hopefully” less than 2 months to process. In the meantime, my loans will be placed on a 2 month administrative forbearance. This means, for the next two months, my repayments will be paused. If my loan repayments are not recalculated by December 24, I will once again be issued a bill and will have to make a massive payment.

The repayment will be due on January 14, 2024. Ironically, the next time I can re-certify my income-based repayment plan is on January 14, 2024.

 

Oh the headaches of having student loans!