How rigid are payment plans?

[deleted678432]

Say you calculate 300k debt on a 10 year payment plan. How rigid is this 10 years? Could you hypothetically take hospital call (or any source of extra payment for this matter), and make 5k in a weekend, then use all of this to pay for the month rather than the ~3k or so that would be calculated? Are minimum payments calculated on your "plan" and how strictly are they enforced? If you set a minimum payment at say 2k/month, can this be changed after a few years?

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[schmoob]

Say you calculate 300k debt on a 10 year payment plan. How rigid is this 10 years? Could you hypothetically take hospital call (or any source of extra payment for this matter), and make 5k in a weekend, then use all of this to pay for the month rather than the ~3k or so that would be calculated? Are minimum payments calculated on your "plan" and how strictly are they enforced? If you set a minimum payment at say 2k/month, can this be changed after a few years?

If you're planning an aggressive debt management approach, I would look into a private refinance. Because you won't need some of the options offered by the federal loans (income driven repayment, forbearance, etc), private may be the way to go for you. They tend to offer lower APR's, so your payments would be servicing your principle moreso than if you were paying off a federal loan.

 

[aggie-master]

You can always pay extra no matter which company is servicing your loan. The extra amount can be applied to the next due date’s payment or you can make a principal payment only.

If you want to be able to switch your payment plans as needed then leave your loans federal and you can choose from many different payment options and switch as your situation changes.

On the other hand, you can typically get much better interest rates if you refinance but the problem with that is you have less flexibility if your financial situation gets worse for whatever reason. They expect you to pay the agreed upon amount no matter what. You can still pay extra at any time but if you lose your job unexpectedly you could have issues.