Must you wait until grace period ends before applying for REPAYE? Forum

[AllDangle]

Over the past couple months I've gotten the "your loans are going into payment soon, pick a plan now!" emails from my servicer. So, I did that. I filled out my application on studentloans.gov for REPAYE, and submitted it with the correct documentation. Ended up going back and forth with the servicer over the last three weeks because some of my income documentation wasn't phrased properly and I had to re-upload.

Today I get notifications that only some of the loans had REPAYE applied to them. I call and ask why. The servicer says that the loans REPAYE was applied to were those in "deferment," and that I could not file for REPAYE as to my loans currently in "grace" until the grace period ends in early November. They said I have to reapply for REPAYE once the grace period ends. Somehow over the past few weeks of speaking with them no one mentioned this to me. Based on the inconsistent advice I've gotten from the various reps, I'm skeptical as to what things they say are actually true/how it works.

So, must I wait until the grace period for my loans currently in grace ends before I apply for REPAYE?

[AllDangle]

Bump

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, at least, that's what happened to me when I was in the grace period (and I'm pretty sure others have reported this as well). It's kind of annoying, but you might try calling back and asking them when the earliest they'll accept it is, because they always then get crushed with everyone's applications and are slow about getting them all processed.

[studentloanplanner]

The way around this dumb 6 month grace period is consolidating your loans immediately at graduation and waiving the grace period in the consolidation application, and then you'll start payments around September probably instead of the end of November as most people have to deal with.

If this is for this year graduating in May or June of 2017, then I'd make doubly sure REPAYE is still around before doing that