Navient Forbearance Advice

[javonnj]

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone here has any solid advice on forbearance with Navient. I am behind on my payments, and receive an e-mail from them about forbearance at least 3 times per week. My loans are currently at 53k, which I know that I will be able to make steady payments on after the three months.

I am unsure if I should go through with the forbearance so that I can clear out other minor debts/collections to then focus solely on Navient, or if there is another option. IDEALLY, I would like to pay everything else off, and start on the right track with Navient at the beginning of 2016. My only concern is that I don't want my loans consolidated, which I am not fully aware of it being possible through the forbearance that they are offering.

Any advice will definitely be appreciated. I would like to respond back to them by the end of the weekend. 

[SCF]

Are these federal student loans?  With federal loans, you have a variety of options to apply for an income-driven repayment plan or delay payments.  This DoE website: https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans has good information about those options.  

What you should definitely NOT do is continue to ignore these loans and just not make payments.  Going into default will cause further damage to your credit, and add fees to your loans.  Contact Navient and talk to them about your options, and then get those loans either on deferment/forbearance or into an affordable payment plan ASAP.

[javonnj]

I have been making continued payments, but navient is presenting me with the option to have a 3 month forbearance. 

Most of my loans are direct sub/unsub and I have one Stafford loan. I am not sure if those are private or federal. 

[SCF]

Direct and Stafford loans are types of federal loans, so you can look at the payment options on the website I linked above, decide what would work best for you, and then contact Navient to get it setup.

[javonnj]

Awesome! Thanks for the help. I will take a look at everything this morning, and then call Navient to see what happens.