It is a new day. Student loans are creating a situation where medical students and others are left with 100,000 of dollars which they must pay back. In some cases, it amounts to a mortgage requiring 15 years or more to pay. While some of the arrangements allow for low payment, it may still be a problem which can affect the ability to purchase an automobile or obtain a mortgage to purchase a home.
Some professional or advanced degree programs can extend for four to eight years.
During the last ten years, student debt has soared., while debt for automobiles and credit card has decreased.
There are many loan forgiveness programs, including those for specific jobs, locations, public service positions, and others. Each state or locale has repayment programs, such as the California healthcare loan repayment program for physicians who agree for a set period to treat California's Medii-caid program. This dovetails well with the shortage of physicians willing to accept Medicaid payments due to low Medicaid reimbursements
AARP explains the impact of student loan debt extending into the life of senior citizens
The number of people over 60 with outstanding student loans has quadrupled in recent years
The true cost of a student loan and it's payback period is far in excess of the loan amount.
AARP recomends several means of accommodating loan debt.
Consider loan consolidation
If you're currently in repayment and you have multiple student loans, you may get financial relief by consolidating your student loans into one smaller, more affordable payment.
This gives you some economic breathing room. However, the trade-off is that loan consolidation extends the life of your loans, so you pay more interest in the long run.
Depending on what type of student loans you have (private or federal), your options for consolidating your loans into a single loan will vary.
Sign up for flexible repayments
If you have federal student loans, Uncle Sam offers a variety of loan repayment options that take into account your income, family size and other factors.
The income-driven repayment plans now available include an income-based repayment (IBR) plan, income-contingent repayment (ICR) plan, Pay as Your Earn (PAYE) repayment plan and the Revised Pay as You Earn plan, better known as REPAYE. The latter plan caps your student loan repayments at a maximum of 10 percent of your income, depending on when you took out the loan.
Get a loan cancellation if you qualify
In 2015, more than half of the 114,000 older borrowers who were subjected to garnishment of their Social Security checks were receiving Social Security disability benefits rather than Social Security retirement income, the GAO found.
However, nearly one-third of older borrowers who had defaulted were ultimately able to get rid of their college debt by obtaining a total and permanent disability discharge, the GAO reported.
A disability discharge is a loan cancellation that's available to borrowers with a disability that is not expected to improve. If you qualify, your loans could be written off entirely, but you will have to provide annual documentation about your income to federal authorities.
Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, the Money Coach, is a personal finance expert, television and radio personality, and regular contributor to AARP.org. You can follow her on Twitter and on Facebook.
CalHealthCares loan repayment program now accepting applications: The program incentivizes physicians to provide care to Medi-Cal beneficiaries by repaying educational debt up to $300,000 in exchange for a five-year service obligation.
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