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Fast Fact

You can postpone your loan payments a maximum of 3 years if you can't find a job.

Source: Federal Student Aid, 2019

Postpone Payments

If you're experiencing a financial hardship; reducing or postponing your student loan payments may help. However, before you postpone your payments, you may want to consider the following:

Explore your repayment plan options.
This can help reduce your monthly payments or even allow you to make interest-only payments.
A deferment or forbearance is temporary.
These are authorized temporary suspensions of repayment, granted under certain circumstances.
Interest keeps accruing.
Even if a deferment or forbearance suspends your monthly payments, you are responsible for repaying accrued interest on all federal and private loans. The only exceptions of this are federal subsidized loans during periods of deferment because the government pays the interest.

NOTE: Any unpaid interest at the end of the deferment or forbearance period may capitalize (be added to your principal balance).
You may become ineligible for certain incentives.
If you use a deferment or forbearance, your eligibility may be delayed, or you may be disqualified for any incentive programs that your lenders may offer, such as co-signer release, interest rate reductions, and rebates.

	Deferment	Forbearance
What Is It	Deferment is a period of time during which your lender temporarily suspends your regular payments.	Forbearance is a period of time during which your lender temporarily reduces or suspends your regular payments.
Reasons to Apply	Enrollment in school Economic hardship Unemployment Military service	Temporary financial hardship Natural disaster Internship or residency National service
Eligible Loans	All loans in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), including: Stafford loans Supplemental loans for students PLUS loans Consolidation loans Some private education loans, depending on the loan type and lender	All loans in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), including: Stafford loans Supplemental loans for students PLUS loans Consolidation loans Some private education loans, depending on the loan type and lender
Who Pays the Interest	Subsidized federal loans—The government pays the daily interest that accrues. All other loan types—You are usually responsible for paying the daily interest that accrues.	All loans—You are usually responsible for paying the daily interest that accrues.

Loan programs come with limited amounts of deferment and forbearance time, so use these opportunities wisely.

Helpful Tips

If you are unable to make the monthly payments on your student loan, call your lender or servicer immediately. Your lender/loan servicer can explain the details about any deferment and forbearance options they offer.
Always see if you qualify for a deferment before using a forbearance, since interest continues to accrue during forbearance no matter what type of loan you have.

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