Student Loan Forgiveness Consultation

A GradFin student loan specialist will break down your student loan profile, provide a chart on what your new loan payoff could look like, answer questions about what terms are the best for your unique situation, and answer any application questions you may have.

If refinancing is determined to be your best option, they can help you understand what information impacts the interest rate that you might expect to be offered on your loan refinancing. Items such as your FICO score, income level, student loan balance, and current interest rate structure can impact your offer, and your specialist can walk you through how to qualify for the lowest rates on your loans.

GradFin was founded in 2015 to help student loan borrowers manage their loans, repay them faster, start saving earlier and achieve their financial goals. GradFin provides borrowers access to free consultations with student loan specialists, helping them understand their options through student loan forgiveness, refinancing, or a combination of both.

Now a brand of KeyBank N.A., GradFin’s specialists have over 50 years of combined experience in working in federal student loan management, including from former FedLoan Servicing trained employees, and have conducted over 60,000 consultations with borrowers since 2015.

The Department of Education (ED) will conduct a one-time account adjustment to borrower accounts that will count time toward IDR and PSLF forgiveness, including:

• Any months in a repayment status, regardless of the payments made, loan type, or repayment plan
• 12 or more months of consecutive forbearance or 36 or more months of cumulative forbearance
• Months spent in economic hardship or military deferments after 2013
• Months spent in any deferment (with the exception of in-school deferment) prior to 2013
• Any time in repayment on earlier loans prior to consolidation of those loans into a consolidation loan

Borrowers who have commercially managed FFEL, Perkins, or Health Education Assistance Loan (HEAL) Program loans should apply for a Direct Consolidation Loan by May 1, 2023, to get the full benefits of the one-time account adjustment. For more information, visit studentaid.gov.

After scheduling your consultation, you’ll receive an email with a link to GradFin Concierge, a secure online tool, where you’ll be asked to provide a number of items to build out your profile so that your consultant can give you the most accurate assessment based on your unique situation. These include:

• Types of loans that you currently hold (federal, private, direct, subsidized, unsubsidized, etc.)
• If you hold federal loans, you will be asked to provide the My Aid Data file, which you can obtain via your studentaid.gov account
• The balance and interest rate for each of your loans
• Current payment schedule
• Authorization for GradFin to conduct a soft credit pull, which will not impact your credit score

PSLF is a U.S. government program that allows qualifying borrowers employed at non-profits and government entities to have their Federal Direct Loans forgiven after ten years of repayment under the Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan (120 payments total).

To be eligible for the program, you must:

• Be employed by a non-profit (must be tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code) OR a U.S. government organization at any level (federal, state, local, or tribal) – including U.S. military service
• Work full-time for that agency or organization
• Have Federal Direct Loans (or consolidate other federal student loans into a Direct Loan)
• Be enrolled in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan
• Make 120 qualifying payments

For more information, go to the Federal Student Aid website at StudentAid.gov/publicservice.

Income-driven repayment was introduced to provide borrowers with options other than forbearance when they have trouble making monthly payments. Four of the more popular income-driven options are, Income-Based Repayment (IBR), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE), and Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) all of which adjust the borrower’s payments based on their adjusted gross income and family size – not how much they owe. Those pursuing PSLF will need to be enrolled in an IDR plan.