Income-driven repayment plans lead to forgiveness in 20 years (25 for ICR and graduate loans). If you qualify for the public service forgiveness, PSLF (which still needs to be on an Income-driven repayment plan to count), in only 10 years. If you work at the school it might already qualify. Do you plan on working in public service after graduation?
Usually, while you're in school at least half time the school will report that. Your loans will automatically go into in-school deferment and interest accrual will pause on subsdized federal loans only. However, most students don't make that much money. Imo out is better to start getting those payments for loan forgiveness if that's your interest.
In order to do this you will need to ask your servicer for an in-school deferment waiver. No need to back date it, though I did because I'd already been making payments and I wanted then to count. You can cancel the waiver only once every so imo better to waive the deferment a year at a time or something if you're not sure. Not you can sign up for an Income-driven repayment plan.
Each plan is a bit different. The easiest thing is to go to the studentloans gov website and go to the repayment estimater log in and it will plug in your loan data for you. The numbers are just estimates; none have usually been lower. Ignore the payments it estimates at the end if your loan; it takes into account that you will get annual raises at your job. Must people pick REPAY or Income-based repayment (IBR).
There are two fastest ways to fill out the IDR plan application: online and by uploading it. Online it links to the IRS site and uses your income data from last year. It's very quick and easy to use. If your income is lower since then or your pay varies fill out the PDF application (usually they require you to scan a real signature on the last page), and uploaded the income verification such as a recent paystub. You'll upload the paperwork to your loan servicer and submit.
When you fill out your IDR it will ask you what plan you want. If you bubble to let them choose the lowest one, imo they usually don't do it, so it's best to do the math yourself.
After they process your application, they'll give you your monthly payments for the next year. You have to pay them on time to count for forgiveness and paying extra or early won't help. It's best to mark your calendar a few months early because they have a tendency to wait until the last minute to send you the recertification reminder. If your income lowers at any time during the year, recertify early and you'll get an even lower payment, good for a new year.
If you plan on paying off your entire loan in standard repayment, this may not be a good option because you do lose out on the in-school deferment of interest (subsidized interest only). However, REPAY does pay all your interest for the first 3 years and half thereafter for subsidized loan. I think it actually pays something on unsubsidized loans too, so it could still be worth it. Payments can be as low as $0.
Hope this helps and good luck with your studies. If you have any more questions, let me know.
