If you are not yet employed, you can ask your student loan lender to defer payments for an additional 15 months. If you have income at that point, the loan will still be available until you earn income again. It can even be taken out without the need for an application.

If you are already employed and you are thinking about taking out another loan, you might consider using the income-driven repayment plans, which allow you to make payments based on your ability to pay rather than income. If you are not already in a repayment plan, you can make payments based on income.

Filing for bankruptcy, if you’ve already started, will cause the interest rates to rise. The amount owed could also go up if you filed in bankruptcy two years ago, as it did in the case of the first four of the nine people who filed this month.

“Even though the loans are more expensive, you will benefit from the repayment plan that you have. It doesn’t mean that you are going to pay back all of the debt, but if you have the money you can make it.”

Still, not everyone can. If you have a student loan, or a loan from a prior school, you may not be able to refinance your current debt.

And that’s not an insurmountable problem. The government offers some tax breaks and other perks to student loan borrowers. You’ll probably qualify if you have a certain amount of student loan debt or, more likely, if you’re getting a loan with a low interest rate.

Student loan interest rates are now lower than they were during the depths of the Great Recession, which is good news. The Federal Reserve has recently held interest rates near zero to keep borrowing costs low. And you may be able to defer interest payments and pay off your student loans faster by applying for a Stafford loan or federal direct loan, depending on your credit.

Get help. You may qualify for the income-based repayment plan. This is a way to pay off student loans at lower rates and may lower your monthly payments.

You may qualify for the income-based repayment plan. This is a way to pay off student loans at lower rates and may lower your monthly payments. We recommend to visit this websites if you’d like to get help paying student loans.