By Dr. James M. Dahle, WCI Founder
Q. I hear the “student loan holiday” is almost over. What should I do about it?
A. Since March 2020, federal student loan borrowers have enjoyed three benefits. First, their student loan interest rate was temporarily set to 0%. Second, required payments were reduced to zero. Third, these nonpayments actually count as payments for those pursuing student loan forgiveness through a federal income-driven repayment (IDR) plan and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program. Taken together, these three benefits really can be considered a student loan holiday.
At the start of the pandemic, when emergency department volumes dropped by 40%, physicians saw their hours and incomes reduced, and as the economy drove off a cliff, a student loan holiday seemed a reasonable policy. However, doctors have generally gone back to work, physician incomes have mostly recovered, and the economy has mostly stabilized for average Americans.
In August 2021, Congress and the Department of Education announced a final extension of the student loan holiday. When announcing the extension, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said, “As our nation’s economy continues to recover from a deep hole, this final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment.”
Barring some new announcement out of Washington, you can assume that your federal student loans will start accruing interest again on Jan. 31, 2022. Your next payment will be due on the day of the month your payments used to be due, not necessarily on Jan. 31, so expect to have to make a payment some time in February. If your loans were set to auto payment, it is likely that they will still be automatically withdrawn from the same bank account. Make sure to update the bank account on file if it has changed over the last 18 months.
Watch Interest Rates and Investigate Loan Forgiveness
Inflation has begun to rear its ugly head in the last few months. While nobody is 100% sure if this is a temporary blip or the start of a long-term trend, remember that the main method the Federal Reserve uses to combat inflation is to raise interest rates. Thus, an interest rate increase has been forecasted to occur by 2023, if not during 2022 or even earlier. If you have not yet refinanced loans that need to be refinanced, you should do so.
Private student loans can always be safely refinanced any time you can get a lower interest rate. At The White Coat Investor website, you can find a list of lenders that will refinance your student loans and even give you cash back to do so. If you are still in your residency or fellowship, four lenders will still refinance your loans and offer you $100 per month payments until you finish training. That may be even lower than your payments would be on federal loans in an IDR program.
Exercise caution prior to refinancing federal loans. Once refinanced, those loans become private loans and are no longer eligible for the protections available in IDR programs, federal loan forgiveness programs such as PSLF, and any future potential tax holidays. It would be tragic for someone to refinance loans that could otherwise be forgiven after just a few more years of making payments as a full-time employee of a nonprofit employer.
However, refinancing often can lower your interest rate by 2% to 7%. Those savings can then be directed toward loan principal and get you out of debt even faster. For a while, CommonBond was offering 6 months of 0% interest, however that deal is now expired. SoFi was offering 0% too but that deal has now expired as well. Always check our main student loan refinancing page for the fine print, current deals, and cash back when you refinance.
To determine what to do with your federal loans, start by considering your employment situation and calculating your student loan debt-to-income ratio. If you owe $200,000 and earn $200,000 per year, your ratio is 1.
If you are not employed full-time by a nonprofit and have a debt-to-income ratio of less than 1.5, you can generally refinance your loans safely. I recommend “living like a resident” for two to five years and paying off the loans rapidly to free yourself from that burden. Then use the income that had been dedicated to those payments to improve your lifestyle or speed your way to financial independence through smart investments.
If you are not employed full-time by a nonprofit and have a debt-to-income ratio of greater than 2.5, you should give serious consideration to pursuing loan forgiveness via the IDR programs such as Pay As You Earn (PAYE). While student loan forgiveness via PAYE is fully taxable and requires 20 years of payments (unlike PSLF, which is tax-free and only requires 10 years of payments), it can still be a great deal for those with very large student loan burdens.
If you are not employed full-time by a nonprofit and have a debt-to-income ratio between 1.5 and 2.5, you would do well to hire an adviser who specializes in student loan advice to help you run the numbers and decide whether to refinance and pay off your loans or pursue IDR forgiveness.
If you are employed full-time by a nonprofit after residency, PSLF is essentially always the best way to take care of your federal student loans, especially if you have been making IDR payments during residency and fellowship. Student loans are a massive part of the financial life of most residents, fellows, and young attendings. Do not feel guilty about paying for your education using borrowed money, but you do need to have a plan to take care of those loans after graduation.
Even though the student loan holiday has been extended a few months, it is now time to get that plan in place.
Refinance Your Student Loans Today!
† Bonus includes cash rebates and value of free course. Borrowers who refinance more than $60,000 in student loans using the WCI links will be enrolled in The White Coat Investor’s flagship course, Fire Your Financial Advisor for free ($799 value). Borrowers will still receive the amazing cash rebates that WCI has negotiated with each lender. Offer valid for loan applications submitted from May 1, 2021 through October 31, 2023. Free course must be claimed within 90 days of loan disbursement. To claim free course enrollment, visit https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/RefiBonus.
What plans have you made to restart your student loans? Does it make sense for you to refinance? Comment below!
[Editor's Note: This article was originally published at ACEPNow]
What companies are offering up to six months of 0% interest and $0 payments? Can’t seem to find one. Thank you.
Ha ha good question. I guess that’s what we get for delaying this post. I wrote it back in August or so and then we delayed its publication because the student loan holiday was extended. I know one of the two deals ended recently. Let me check on the other one and get the post fixed with the most current info.
Okay, the CommonBond deal is over, but Sofi’s deal is still going. I’ll update the post.
Morgan,
SoFi’s deal is zero % interest until December 20, 2021 and no payments until February 2022.
Andrew StudentLoanAdvice
Does anyone know what amount the loans will restart at?
Meaning, will it be the payment that was in place at the beginning of the loan pause? I assume since I had not recertified my income in the last 18 months, it would revert back to that amount. But I also don’t want it to default to the 10yr standard repayment.
Per my loan servicer, I am paying the same IBR payment for all of 2022 and will need to recertify income for 2023. My loan will remain in the same IBR plan
JALLEN,
Yes, the payments will be based on the last time you certified your income.
If your income has dropped since that time, it’s a good idea to recertify to bring your payments down. If your income has increased don’t certify until you are required to do so to keep your payments low.
Andrew StudentLoanAdvice
Yes, until you recertify your income. Nice gift eh?
Are there different options one should consider when refinancing if one is a recent graduate (2020) and under a newly formed corporation? I formed a S-Corporation in 2021 and am finding that the loan servicers are asking for a 2yr history of self-employment to be able to report to them. I would love to refinance to take advantage of the low rates at this time.
Any input would be appreciated, thanks.
Try them all, but you may not be able to refinance unless here are some guarantees in your contracts with your clients.
I just refinanced my loans and started in working in 2020. Residency counts as employment history with all of the quotes I received so it should not be an issue.
My pslf/tepslf just went through in November! I couldn’t be more excited, as the last 18 payments were $0! There was a lot of uncertainty throughout the process, but glad I hung in there and eventually it worked out.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I applied to SoFi through wci, and they are quoting a finance charge almost 7K “the estimated dollar amount the credit will cost you”. This is separate from the loan amount financed. I have a screenshot, just can’t attach here. Very confused, thought the point was to have no additional fees outside the loans ….? TIA!
That’s not a fee. That’s simply their estimate of how much interest you will pay over the course of the loan. Pay it off faster and the amount will be lower.