It couldn’t last forever. Your student loan grace period is coming to an end, and you’re wondering what’s to come. We’ve got you covered here.
Your education is very important. That’s why many young adults decide to take out student loans in order to fund their degrees.
What’s great about student loans is that you are not required to pay them back immediately after you graduate. In fact, your student loan grace period can last up to 3 years!
However, the day will come when you’ll end up having to pay for your student loans. That day might even be approaching soon, and you are probably wondering what the next steps are to taking care of your loan.
Don’t worry! We’re here to help! Here are our top 4 ways to transition out of the student loan grace period:
1. Get All of the Details First
Your first step towards transitioning out of the student loan grace period is to get all of the information you need about paying off your student loans.
You need to see how much money you owe, what your interest rate is, and who you actually need to pay.
If you took out a federal loan, you can log on to the Federal Loan Student Aid Website. Then, you can check all of your loan information when you log into the National Student Loan Data System. The Data System will give you a full report of everything that you owe and how much the interest will be.
2. Repayment Plan
Your second step will be to create a repayment plan. You can do this online by finding your loan servicers via the National Student Loan Data System.
Once online, you can decide to select the auto payment option, which will connect to your bank account and automatically pay your fees every month. This is the quickest and easiest way to pay your loans efficiently.
At first, you will be allowed to choose how much you are able to pay per month. Then, when you start to make more money, you should also start paying more per month off your loans. That way, you will be able to pay off all of your student loans a lot faster.
For example, the Obama Student Loan gives people the option for a Pay As You Earn program. This is helpful for people who need more affordable payment methods, especially right out of college.
3. Decide Whether You Want to Consolidate
You will have the option to consider consolidating all of your loans into one bill. That way, you will easily be able to pay all of your loans at once instead of pay separately to each servicer.
In addition, when you consolidate, you are paying the same interest rate, rather than having to pay different interest rates on different bills.
However, if you choose to consolidate your loans, you won’t be able to undo the action later on. If you want to consolidate, make sure that you will not regret that decision in the future.
4. Make Your Own Monthly Budget
This is an optional last step. If you are someone who likes to keep things nice and organized, you may want to consider creating your own monthly budget.
Calculate all of your expenses and include the loans to see how much money you will owe each month.
Then, from there you can decide how much you are able to pay for your student loans based on your monthly income.
Transitioning out of the student loan grace period can be rough, especially right after you graduate college. Use these steps to get you out of your student loan anxiety, and prepare yourself for your incoming future.