Loan deferment during fellowship

[aprilpremed]

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My student loans were in deferment for my first 3 years of residency and are now in forebearance. I have been told I can put my loans in deferment again while doing fellowship, which I will start this July. Is this possible? I have been told once yes and once no from my lender.

 

[Phlame217]

No, as of the new act that started in 2009, deferring is no longer available to some one making > 15k per year. You can, however, do income base repayment which is currently capped @ 15% of income, hopefully soon to be 10% if Obama pushes that change through.

 

[MDhasbeen]

No, as of the new act that started in 2009, deferring is no longer available to some one making > 15k per year. You can, however, do income base repayment which is currently capped @ 15% of income, hopefully soon to be 10% if Obama pushes that change through.

i'm in the same boat as the person above. how does one calculate income-based repayments if you're uncertain what your future income will be? while i know what my fellowship salary will be, i moonlight and get paid by the admission/consult and thus have no way of knowing exactly what my income will add up to in the end. i do know it'll be a lot less than in the past year, however, seeing as i will have to drastically cut down on any moonlighting while doing fellowship. 😕

 

[anhoi]

The answer is yes, as a fellow you are able to defer your loans. As a resident, you are only able to do IBR or forbearance.

 

[pem8erly]

The answer is yes, as a fellow you are able to defer your loans. As a resident, you are only able to do IBR or forbearance.

Uhm, under what program?? Because economic hardship is no longer an option.

 

[anhoi]

As a fellow, the deferment is not under economic hardship...it is via graduate fellowship (I could be wrong). Please follow this link to the appropriate form on the DL website:

https://www.dl.ed.gov/borrower/Defe...ardName=Graduate Fellowship Program Deferment

 

[TopsyKrett]

As a fellow, the deferment is not under economic hardship...it is via graduate fellowship (I could be wrong). Please follow this link to the appropriate form on the DL website:

https://www.dl.ed.gov/borrower/Defe...ardName=Graduate Fellowship Program Deferment

I don't think that applies to physican fellowship, rather graduate fellowship as in like for phd's. not entirely sure though

 

[MDhasbeen]

No, as of the new act that started in 2009, deferring is no longer available to some one making > 15k per year. You can, however, do income base repayment which is currently capped @ 15% of income, hopefully soon to be 10% if Obama pushes that change through.

As of this month, my loan servicer is using 0.2 as the cutoff for "hardship forbearance." I'm a physician fellow making squat right now after taxes, yet of course they use gross income as the basis of the loan repayment. Is the 0.2 cutoff a basis of complaint? Or does that apply to income based repayment only? If I have to do any sort of income-based repayment, I'll pretty much be in abject poverty for the rest of the year. I was also hoping to try the graduate fellowship deferment, but it looks like it might not apply to physician fellows? Anyone have any luck with this? The forms I'm required to submit are pretty vague about the whole thing. And I am doing fellowship to obviously further my education. 😕

Edit: They're also using the income-based payment amount as the basis for the 0.2 value this year when they didn't last year. I remember in the past that loan servicers would snag people into repayment by using the 30-year loan repayment values rather than the required 10-year monthly payments (a much higher amount!). Is it now legal for them to be using the IBR value as the basis for hardship forbearance?

Edit #2: Just got another notice in the mail today. Looks like they "re-calculated" my terms "to maintain federal/program guidelines." Now my loan payments aren't due until Sept. Whatever that means. Basically they're putting me on the 30-year repayment plan and ignoring my hardship forbearance request. I guess the big question remains: What do loan servicers use as the loan repayment amount to compare your income to? As I'd posted above, they were required to use the 10-year monthly payment values to calculate hardship for forbearance in years past. Has this changed? Because if it hasn't...

 

[MDhasbeen]

As a follow-up, called my loan servicer this AM and was told to use the fellowship deferment. Was shocked as I'd heard all kinds of things otherwise here and other places. The rep told me this deferment is actually primarily *for* medical fellows. WTF? 🙄 Well, here goes nothin' cuz the alternative of payments would push me into poverty for the coming year...

Anyway, apparently the loan payment values depend on which type of hardship deferment/forbearance you seek. For forbearance they compare your payments to your scheduled payments on whatever plan you're on now. For deferment (which I understand only a few qualify for now) they compare your salary to the payments on the 10-year repayment plan. Totally 😕