Paying on student loans in residency??

[twinkletoes79]

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I just got a letter from the company that manages my student loans. It says the my economic hardship deferrment is up on 11-19-08. I'm only a PGY-2 and have 3 more years to go. Has this happened to other people? How did you handle it?

 

[RTrain]

Once your deferment is up, you can get a forbearance for any or all of the time that you are in medical training. In a forbearance, interest accrues on both subsidized and unsubsidized loans (as opposed to unsubsidized only in deferment), but you do not have to make payments.

 

[dragonfly99]

twinkletoes...
I used econ. hardship deferral during residency (1st 2 years). I think you can usually get it for 2-3 years (I think it's up to 3, if you qualify).
You just have to reapply every year. You need to reapply (like you did last year) and if your income is still low enough then you should qualify. IMHO you should still try and pay something on your loans...try to pay at least the interest each month, so the loans don't get bigger and bigger. You are "allowed" to make payments even if you apply for economic hardship and get it. 2nd option if that fails would be forbearance, but that's not as good as econ. hardship because the interest on your subsidized Stafford loans won't be paid by the gov't if you do forbearance.

 

[yadayadadude]

Economic hardship deferral is kaput next year, barring new legislation to the contrary. See about a million threads on this subject in the financial aid forum.

 

[dragonfly99]

I know that, but she/he is asking about NOW/this November. Aren't they not getting rid of the current econ. hardship plan until the end of 2009? He/she should still qualify, provided the current income is still low enough. You just have to reapply/refile the form to get the economic hardship once/year (i.e. now/this November) as I remember it.

There's still going to be "economic hardship" available after 2009, but it's just going to be different (and not as good) b/c you'll be required to make some payments, but they will be sliding-scale, income-dependent ones.