Each of your accounts will be listed on your Credit Report AND your payment history will be shown as well.

There will also be a list of those companies who have made inquiries about your payment history.  This information will be used to determine whether or not credit should be extended to you.

Your credit score represents your ability to make good on your promises and not default.  Your Credit Score can also affect the rate of interest you will ultimately pay on loans.  It costs money to obtain your Credit Score.

FICO is a company which devised a score range from 300 to 850.  FICO actually stands for Fair Isaac & Company.  The FICO score has become a universally accepted way to evaluate your credit.  Since the time that the FICO score became popular, however, the three major credit reporting agencies have devised their own ways of giving your credit a score rating.

By obtaining credit reports from each of the major credit reporting agencies, you will be able to identify any discrepancies or differences between the agencies.

Once you find mistakes, go to the credit reporting agency’s website to make a submission about the incorrectness or send one to them through the mail (certified with return receipt).

One service that is provided by the major credit reporting agencies is Credit Monitoring in which case changes to your credit report or score will be forwarded to you.

In general, you will have to wait 10 years in order to request that bankruptcy is removed from your report.  Nowadays, student loans are discharged (forgiven) through bankruptcy under unusual circumstances only.  Some repayment plans allow forgiveness, however, if you make all of the reduced payments and/or are employed by a government agency or nonprofit.

Additionally, you will have to wait seven years to have any late payments removed from your report.

After you make a request to fix an error, you should follow up by phone.  Submitting your request by mail with return receipt is probably not enough.  You will want to mention that the company is required to repair the mistake within 30 days.

You can also choose to explain why you made (or missed) a payment on the credit report.  Be sure to also read our page on credit repair companies or get more information about how to obtain a free credit report.

Check back to this site, myedaccount.org, for more information and be sure to read the disclaimer below.

The grace period for Perkins loans is nine months. If you leave school or drop below half-time enrollment, your loans go into “repayment status” immediately (without any grace period) instead of maintaining “in-school” status.

The following situations can therefore trigger Direct loan repayment:

• Graduate

• Leave School

• Drop below Half-time enrollment

Other types of statuses include: “in deferment” status or “in forbearance” status or even “in default” status if you haven’t made payments in a while. Much of this information is outlined on this Web site, so keep reading and check back often as the site is continually being updated.

Normally, repayment plan selection occurs towards the end of your grace period but you can also change plans during repayment, if you feel you need to (for financial or other reasons). It is imperative that you are careful (and get all the information) when you select your repayment plan because you may actually pay more in interest over the life of your loans by choosing one plan over another (or by extending the period over which you will repay your loans).

Payments are normally applied first to any late fees, then to accrued interest and finally towards the principal (bulk) portion of the loan. A servicer could apply your loan payment in a differently and in ways that you may not approve. (More information on how payments are applied based on repayment status will be forthcoming.)

If you’ve borrowed a PLUS loan, you should begin repaying the loans right away (both Graduate/Professional PLUS and Parent PLUS loans.) It is possible to defer repayment on a PLUS loan.

Direct Loans can be subsidized or unsubsidized but either way you are required to begin making payments six months after you graduate.

Direct Loans are made by the U.S. Government. A Loan Servicer handles your check when you make repayments. The Loan Servicer will keep track of how much you owe and can accept your documentation for special repayment plans. Be sure to select a repayment plan as soon as you graduate (at least before the end of your grace period) and before a repayment plan is selected for you.

Typically, if you do not select a repayment plan, the Standard 10-year repayment plan is selected for you.

Perkins loan payments are collected by your school.

Your loan servicer may not care what kind of repayment plan you select, so read this site to get a better idea of your options.

You will give up certain rights depending on the repayment plan you select. If you are asking your servicer for legal assistance, you could be at a disadvantage because a customer service representative may not know the law.

Why are there so many repayment plans? Students represent a large voting block. Over and over again, politicians have appealed to us at election time with exciting new legislation and rules just for student loan borrowers. As a result, the Higher Education Act has become a complex system with many pitfalls. This Web site describes some of those pitfalls but should not be relied upon for legal advice (read disclaimer below).

It is important to contact your loan servicer if you are about to miss (or have missed) a payment.

If you don’t know who your servicer is, go to the National Student Loan Data System online at www.nslds.ed.gov

The Department of Education also has these websites to help borrowers:

www.direct.ed.gov

www.loanconsolidation.ed.gov

www.ed.gov

www.studentaid.ed.gov

www.ifap.ed.gov

www.studentaid.ed.gov

www.blogs.edweek.gov

Once you know who your loan servicer is, you can make payment arrangements are keep track of your balance.

If you need professional help with your student loans (selecting a repayment plan, calculating which plan minimizes your interest expense, applying for income-based repayment plan, getting your taxes done, for example) contact the admin at myedaccount.org

Calculating The Interest on Most Loans

(1) Take your interest rate and divide it by the number of days in the year (which is normally 365 – unless it is ‘leap year’). This is known as the interest rate factor.

(2) Multiply the number of days since your last payment by the outstanding principal balance of your loan, as shown here:

NUMBER OF DAYS (SINCE LAST PAYMENT) X OUTSTANDING PRINCIPAL

(3) Multiply the result from step (2) by the interest rate factor described in step (1). 

The result should be the interest that has accrued on your loan.

Calculate the interest that has become payable each month and subtract it from the amount of your monthly payment. By tracking your interest expense and keeping good records, you could end up paying your loans down faster.

Instead of paying off your loans as quickly as possible, other repayment plans actually encourage borrowers to make reduced payments each month. The reduced payments are usually based on your income from your most recent tax return (or other documentation). You may want to see if you qualify for these Income-Based and Income-Contingent repayment plans order to obtain loan forgiveness in ten, 20 or 25 years.

Some borrowers may want to pay as little as possible each month in order to free up some of your cash to pay off other debt, start an emergency fund, and/or a Roth IRA, invest in the stock market, buy a home or even go back to school. Remember, loan forgiveness is oftentimes taxed.

The Office of Personnel Management is actually required to provide on-going information to Congress about these loan repayments made to United States Federal employees each year.

In 2011, 71.8 million dollars was paid out on behalf of Federal employees for their student loans. If you are looking for work and/or a career, this program would be a great way to get some of your student loans paid off. However, there’s no guarantee that the program will be around forever.

The worker benefit applies only to loans made by the federal government (or previously guaranteed under the older Federal Family Education Loan program) and is outlined in Title 5 of the U.S. Code which covers Government Organization and Employees.