If you’ve got student loans and no clear picture of them, start here. In about an hour you can find every loan you owe and know which plan fits you. You don’t need to pay anyone for this. Every step is free.
Most people who feel buried don’t have a money problem first. They have a paperwork problem, like an old loan they forgot or a plan that ended without them noticing. Fix that, and the rest of the decisions get a lot easier.
The short answer
- Your federal loans are all listed in your StudentAid.gov account. Private loans aren’t, so pull your free credit reports to find those.
- Federal and private loans play by different rules. Only federal loans have income-driven plans, PSLF and federal forgiveness.
- Your servicer is the company you pay. It’s free to deal with, and you never need a paid middleman.
- The SAVE plan is over. If you were on it, pick a new plan before your servicer’s deadline.
- Autopay on federal Direct Loans takes 1% off your rate through June 30, 2028 if you’re enrolled by December 31, 2026.
Step 1: Find every loan you have
Log in to StudentAid.gov. Your account lists the federal student loans in your name and who services each one. If you forgot your login, recover it there rather than guessing at old servicer websites.
Private loans won’t show up on StudentAid.gov. To catch those, pull your credit reports at AnnualCreditReport.com. It’s the only site authorized to give out the free reports you’re entitled to by law, and you can check each of the three bureaus once a week for free. Look for installment accounts with a bank, credit union or student lender name.
Write down what you find. A simple list with the lender or servicer, balance, rate, and monthly payment is enough.
Step 2: Sort federal from private
Why does it matter? Because the two kinds of loans have completely different safety nets, and it changes every choice after this.
| Federal loans | Private loans | |
|---|---|---|
| Who you borrowed from | The U.S. Department of Education (Direct Loans), or an older federal program like FFEL or Perkins | A bank, credit union, online lender or state agency |
| Payment tied to income | Yes. RAP and IBR set the payment from your income | No. The lender sets the terms |
| Forgiveness | PSLF, income-driven forgiveness, Teacher Loan Forgiveness, plus death, disability and school-related discharges | Only what your loan contract says |
| Pausing payments | Federal deferment and forbearance options | Varies by lender |
| Can you refinance? | Not inside the federal system. Consolidation combines federal loans but doesn’t lower the rate | Yes, with any private lender that approves you |
If your federal loans have old names like Stafford, those are Direct Subsidized and Direct Unsubsidized Loans. Parent PLUS loans are federal too, but they follow their own rules. See our Parent PLUS repayment guide if you borrowed for a child.
Step 3: Find your servicer
Your servicer is the company that sends your bill and handles your plan. For loans the Department of Education owns, it’s one of these: Edfinancial, MOHELA, Aidvantage, Nelnet, ECSI (for Perkins), or CRI. Defaulted loans go to the Default Resolution Group.
To see yours, log in to StudentAid.gov, open My Aid, and choose “View loan servicer details.” Or call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243.
Two things trip people up. Navient isn’t a federal Direct Loan servicer anymore, so if you still have an old Navient login for federal loans, it’s out of date. And older FFEL loans that a bank owns, or Perkins loans your school holds, are serviced by that bank or school, not the list above.
Never pay for help with federal loans
Your servicer will change your plan, set up a deferment and process forgiveness forms at no cost. A company that charges you to do the same thing is charging for paperwork you can do yourself, and some are scams.
We compare how each one handles calls and payments in our guide to federal student loan servicers.
Step 4: Know your balance, rate and plan
For each loan, get four things from your servicer account: the balance, the interest rate, the repayment plan, and the due date. The rate on a federal loan is fixed for life. For loans first disbursed July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, it’s 6.52% for undergraduates, 8.07% for graduate and professional students, and 9.07% for PLUS loans.
Check the plan name especially. If it still says SAVE, you need to act. A court ended the SAVE plan in March 2026. Your servicer sends a notice, and you have 90 days from that notice to pick a new plan. If you don’t choose, you’re put on the Standard plan (or Tiered Standard if you have a loan made on or after July 1, 2026). Our SAVE plan guide covers what to pick.
Step 5: Pick a repayment plan
So which plans can you use? That depends on when your loans were made.
If every federal loan you have was first disbursed before July 1, 2026, you can choose from Standard, Graduated, Extended, IBR and RAP, plus ICR and PAYE until they close (no later than July 1, 2028). If you have even one Direct Loan, including a consolidation loan, first disbursed on or after July 1, 2026, all of your Direct Loans go on RAP or Tiered Standard.
RAP is the new income-driven plan. Your payment is a percentage of your adjusted gross income (AGI), from 1% to 10% depending on how much you earn (a flat $120 a year at $10,000 or less), divided by 12. It takes $50 off for each dependent and never drops below $10. Any balance left after 360 qualifying payments is forgiven.
Example: Maria, single, $52,000 AGI, no dependents
- Her RAP rate
- 5% of AGI
- Yearly payment
- $2,600
- RAP payment
- $216.67/mo
How we got it: AGI between $50,001 and $60,000 falls in RAP’s 5% band. $52,000 times 5% is $2,600 a year, and $2,600 divided by 12 is $216.67. With no dependents, nothing comes off. On RAP, if a full on-time payment doesn’t cover the month’s interest, the unpaid interest is waived, and if it cuts her principal by less than $50, the government adds a match so the principal still drops $50.
Tiered Standard is the fixed-payment option for newer loans: 10 years if you owe under $25,000, up to 25 years if you owe $100,000 or more. It’s simple, but it doesn’t count for PSLF.
Plug your own income into the RAP calculator, then compare every plan side by side in our repayment plans guide.
Step 6: Set up autopay
This is the easiest money on the page. Enroll in automatic payments on your federal Direct Loans by December 31, 2026, or already be enrolled, and you get a 1% interest rate cut through June 30, 2028. It used to be 0.25%.
On $30,000 in Direct Loans, a 1 point rate cut is roughly $300 less interest in the first year. FFEL, Perkins and HEAL loans don’t get it, and a defaulted loan has to get out of default first.
Set it up on your servicer’s site, and make sure the payment date lines up with payday. Our autopay walkthrough has the details.
Step 7: If you can’t make the payment
Can’t swing it this month? Don’t just stop paying. A federal loan is delinquent the day after a missed payment, it goes on your credit report at 90 days, and it’s in default at 270 days.
- Switch to an income-driven plan. On RAP the payment can be as low as $10 a month, and IBR can be $0 at low incomes.
- Ask about deferment. Unemployment and economic hardship deferments are there for loans made before July 1, 2027. Interest on unsubsidized loans keeps building.
- Use forbearance only as a short pause. Interest builds on every loan type during forbearance.
- If you’re already in default, get out. Rehabilitation takes 9 on-time payments over 10 months and can cost as little as $5 a month. You can apply online at the Defaulted Loans Support Center.
Wage garnishment and tax refund offset for defaulted federal loans are paused, with no restart date announced. A default still hits your credit, though, so don’t treat the pause as a reason to wait. Our default guide walks through every way out.
Private loans are different. Call the lender and ask what hardship options it has, since each one sets its own.
Where forgiveness fits
Forgiveness is real. But it’s slow, and it only applies to federal loans.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness wipes out your Direct Loans after 120 qualifying payments while you work full time for a government or nonprofit employer, and it isn’t federally taxable. Income-driven plans forgive what’s left after 20 to 30 years, and that forgiveness is generally federally taxable for discharges in 2026 or later. There’s also Teacher Loan Forgiveness and discharges for death, disability and closed schools.
The full list, with who qualifies, is in our student loan forgiveness programs guide.
A word on private loans and refinancing
Private loans don’t have federal plans, so refinancing is the main lever: a new private loan at a lower rate pays off the old one. That can make sense for private loans if your credit or income has improved.
Before you refinance federal loans
Refinancing federal loans with a private lender takes them out of the federal system for good. You’d give up RAP and IBR, PSLF and other forgiveness, the RAP interest waiver, federal deferment and forbearance, and the death, disability and school discharges. Only do it if you’re sure you won’t need any of that.
If you’re weighing it, start with should you refinance your student loans.
Student loan terms in plain English
- Servicer
- The company that bills you and manages your federal loan. It isn’t the lender.
- Direct Loans
- Federal loans made by the Department of Education: Subsidized, Unsubsidized, PLUS and Consolidation.
- Subsidized
- A federal undergraduate loan where the government pays the interest while you’re in school at least half time, during the six-month grace period and during deferment.
- Grace period
- Six months after you leave school or drop below half time before payments start on Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans.
- RAP
- Repayment Assistance Plan. The income-driven plan that started July 1, 2026, with a $10 minimum and forgiveness after 360 qualifying payments.
- Tiered Standard
- A fixed-payment plan for loans made on or after July 1, 2026, lasting 10 to 25 years depending on your balance.
- Deferment
- A pause on payments. On subsidized loans the government pays the interest during it.
- Forbearance
- A pause or cut in payments where interest keeps building on every loan type.
- Consolidation
- Combining federal loans into one Direct Consolidation Loan. The rate is the weighted average, rounded up to the nearest one-eighth of 1%. It can’t be undone.
- Default
- For Direct Loans, going at least 270 days without a scheduled payment.
Next stepSee every free calculator in one place on our student loan tools page.
Questions people ask first
Log in to StudentAid.gov to see every federal loan, with balances, rates and servicers. For private loans, pull your free credit reports at AnnualCreditReport.com and look for student loan accounts, then log in with each lender.
For federal loans owned by the Department of Education, it’s Edfinancial, MOHELA, Aidvantage, Nelnet, ECSI or CRI, or the Default Resolution Group for defaulted loans. Log in to StudentAid.gov and choose View loan servicer details, or call 1-800-433-3243.
No. A court ended SAVE in March 2026. Each SAVE borrower gets a notice from their servicer and has 90 days from it to choose a new plan. If you don’t, you’re placed on the Standard plan, or Tiered Standard if you have a loan made on or after July 1, 2026.
Yes. Federal Direct Loan borrowers who enroll in autopay by December 31, 2026, or are already enrolled, get a 1% rate cut through June 30, 2028. FFEL, Perkins and HEAL loans don’t qualify.
Call your servicer before you miss a payment. Ask about an income-driven plan like RAP or IBR, then deferment or forbearance if you need a short pause. Federal loans go on your credit report at 90 days late and default at 270 days.
Sources (15)
We use primary sources: Federal Student Aid, the U.S. Department of Education and the Federal Trade Commission.
- Federal Student Aid. Federal student loan servicers. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Federal versus private loans. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Financial aid dictionary. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Interest Rates and Fees for Federal Student Loans. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Big updates to federal student loans. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Definitions for the new loan rules. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Income-driven repayment plans. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. What SAVE borrowers need to know. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Education. Department extends enrollment period for student loan interest rate reduction. ed.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Get temporary relief. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Student loan delinquency and default. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Public Service Loan Forgiveness. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. IDR plan court actions. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Trade Commission. Free credit reports. consumer.ftc.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
