Rebecca Ballhaus

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97 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2022 last heard Apr 2022

Rebecca Ballhaus’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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WSJ Your Money Briefing · Repaying Student Loans: What Options Do You Have? · 29 Apr 2022 podcast

You want to think about things like how you expect your income to change over time.

Do you expect to get married in the near future?

And if so, how much does your future spouse expect to make?

Thanks for having me.

So it's good to start thinking about these things as early as possible and trying to determine which plan might work the best for you.

But for the most part, you won't start repaying your student loans until six months after you leave school.

So you do have a little bit of time after you graduate where you can still figure out which plan makes the most sense for you.

But it's at that six-month point that you'll want to have made a decision because otherwise you'll be automatically enrolled in this standard 10-year repayment plan.

Yeah, so there's a long list of possible repayment plans, and they all sound pretty similar.

But to sort of break them down, the first is that standard 10-year repayment plan that I mentioned.

There's also a graduated repayment plan, which sets monthly payments lower at first and increases them about every two years, again, with the aim of paying them off in 10 years.

An extended repayment plan lets you pay either a fixed or steadily increasing monthly amount over 25 years.

And then there are the income-based repayment plans, which set monthly payments at a certain share of your discretionary income with the goal of having the remaining balance forgiven after 20 to 25 years.

Now, things, of course, may change for you.

Your income may change.

So if you've already started repaying on one plan, it is possible to change to a different plan.

You can contact your loan servicer.

Changing your plan is free.

But there is one thing you want to pay attention to, and that's interest capitalization.

That's when interest gets added onto your principal balance and you start paying interest on a new, higher amount.

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