That’s a great question! Let's take a look at a few different situations.
If you’re an enrolled student
You don’t have to make payments
If you're enrolled at least half-time in school, then all of your federal student loans should be automatically paused and no payments should be due. This is called “in-school deferment.” If you don’t want to make payments, you don’t have to!
Use Summer to plan ahead
You can share your loan details and use Summer’s income-driven repayment (IDR) tool if you want to get an estimate of what your payments will be in an income-driven repayment plan once you start making payments.
Once you graduate and your loans enter "grace period", you can refresh your loan information and submit an income-driven repayment application!
If you’re working in the public sector, you may want to start paying early
There are some cases where you may want to make payments on your loans while you’re still in school. Particularly if you’re working full-time in the public sector while you attend school, you may want to start making qualifying payments toward the 10 years required for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).
For your payments to qualify for PSLF, you’ll need to make sure your loan status is “in repayment” and not “in school deferment.” To make that change, you’ll need to contact your loan servicer directly.
Then, you’ll need to make sure you’re enrolled in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan. You can use Summer’s IDR tool to find the plan with the lowest monthly payment for your situation and enroll online.
If you’re a parent and have loans for a child in school
You can pause payments
Parents with Parent PLUS loans can also request a deferment for the time their child is enrolled at least half-time in school and for a six-month grace period following when they graduate. You’ll need to proactively request the deferment, otherwise payments will be due once the loan is fully disbursed.
Use Summer to consolidate loans and check program eligibility
Parents can also opt to make payments while their child is in school. This can be especially useful if the parent works full-time in the public sector. To make qualifying payments for PSLF though, parents must first consolidate Parent PLUS loans into Direct loans. Summer’s IDR tool can help with the next steps to make sure loans and repayment plans qualify for forgiveness.
These options can be confusing to navigate, so you’re always welcome to reach out to us at hello@meetsummer.org for questions and support!