Federal Student Loan Forbearance  

 How to Obtain Federal Student Loan Forbearance 

If you have graduated and have a student loan that needs to be paid back and are having some difficulty keeping up with the payments, you may want to know about Federal Student Loan forbearance.  You should understand that it is simply one way to reduce or postpone student loan payments temporarily.  This temporary reduction or postponement happens for a specific period of time, such as for 6 months or 12 months.  The loan holder can grant the forbearance in monthly intervals, such as 6 or 9 months, but cannot grant more than 12 months at a time.  However, forbearance can be granted for a total of up to 3 years by the loan servicer. 

How does a person qualify for forbearance? 

In order to qualify for Federal Student Loan Forbearance, you must generally be having some type of financial difficulty.  If you are experiencing unemployment or partial disability, you would most likely qualify.  If you have other documented hardship, you can also qualify.  You can receive the forbearance if you are not eligible for a deferment.  It doesn’t matter whether your loans are unsubsidized or subsidized, like it does for a deferment.   This is because the interest will continue to accrue and you will still be responsible to repay that interest after the forbearance period has expired.  While the application to the loan servicer is being approved, the regular payments must be paid until it is actually granted.  You should also know that the interest rates are not locked in unless the original loan had a fixed rate.  The interest rate on the original loan is not affected in any way by the forbearance. 

What are some of the Benefits of Federal Student Loan forbearance? 

It can be helpful by allowing college graduates who have not been able to get a job immediately to delay repaying their student loans.  The need to make monthly payments is gone for a certain period of time.  For a graduate who has little or no income, this is a good way not to have to simply default on the loan because payments simply can’t be made.  This allows the person some time to find a job that will allow him to begin to make payments again.  Because the loan holder can grant up to 3 years worth of forbearance, a graduate should have enough time to get his employment situation to the point where he can begin repaying the student loan.