There comes a time in every student’s life when those pesky loans demand to be repaid.

Wait! You can still live your life – it’s not all doom and gloom until the loans get paid off. You’re fresh out of college, so you should be used to all that thinking by now… Think over your options and find a strategy that works (within your budget). Here are a few ways to effectively move forward and make a dent in your dreaded repayment sum.

And if you keep at it, you just might get them all paid off! Wouldn’t that be something?

1. How to Compare Different Monthly Repayments

If money is tight (and it is for most recent graduates), you might think about switching to an income-driven repayment plan. This allows your monthly payment to get as low as $0 per month. 

If that sounds too good to be true, realize that on the income-driven repayment plan, you will probably pay more money in total… It will just happen over a longer period of time. Each month, the amount you pay toward your loans will depend on your repayment plan. By taking no action at all, (and choosing nothing), you get automatically enrolled in the 10-year Standard Repayment Plan.

As an example, You might want to pay off your student loans ASAP. In this case, you’d want a repayment plan with bigger monthly payments to reduce interest. But if money is a little tighter, you might choose an income-driven plan to reduce upcoming monthly payments.

Then, once your career really starts taking off, you can jump over to a standard plan, allowing you to pay the loans off faster (in terms of payment size and interest accrued).

2. When to Consolidate

Did you take out federal student loans before the year 2011? If so, you might have to consolidate them into the Direct Loan program before you’re able to access superior income-driven repayment plans. If multiple loans and/or servicers want a single monthly payment, this is also a reason to consolidate. 

The application only takes about 10 minutes, and just the simplicity of managing a single monthly payment can be a huge relief. Loans are stressful enough – why not make them as easy as possible to pay off?

3. How to Pick a Payment Plan (an Affordable One)

If consolidation (described above) sounds good to you, then you’ll choose a repayment plan from what’s called the “consolidation application.”

But if you are not going to consolidate, and you’d like to enroll in an income-driven repayment plan, you can visit studentloans.gov to fill out an application – it only takes around 10 minutes to finish, so it’s a small investment of your time with potentially large-scale ramifications.

There’s also such a thing as a Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which you can enter into by applying for an income-driven repayment plan, then submitting an Employment Certification Form.

4. How to Use a Smart Payment Setup

Borrowers never directly pay the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) when repaying loans.Usually, you will make payments to what’s called a loan servicer. Loan servicers work on behalf of the DoE, collecting your payments and providing general customer service. If you don’t know who your loan servicer is, you can figure it out here.

Loan servicers reach out to borrowers in order to tell them when the first payment is due. They may also inform borrowers on how to make a payment, which is incredibly helpful. This is one of the reasons it’s so important that you provide your loan servicers with updated contact info.

You can often simplify the repayment process by enrolling in “auto debit.” In this case, your payments will be automatically taken from your bank account each month. Your servicer will be able to give you specific details about how to enroll in an auto debit program.

5. When to Back Away…

Keep an eye out for student loan scams! 

You never have to pay for help with loans like these. When you research repayment and forgiveness options, be sure all your info is coming from trusted sources – a simple way to check is the URL. Does it end in .gov? If so, it’s a safe bet.

Your servicer’s website is also a trustworthy source. Remember that neither the government nor your servicer will ever charge application or maintenance fees. So it’s simple: If you’re asked to pay, walk away.