If you fall behind in your student loan payments and end up in student loan default, there are a lot of tools the Department of Education can use to get their money back. If you have a federal loan then student loan default can cost you even more than the amount you originally borrowed. By defaulting on your loan you can be charged high fees by loan guaranty agencies and you may get charged for the commission fees that the Department of Education pays to collection agencies.

The IRS can actually hold back your tax refund check until you finish making payments on your federal student loans if they have gone into default. This method of retrieving their funds is most frequently utilized by the Department of Education. When you have failed to make a payment within a ninety day period, the IRS will be informed that your federal student loans have gone into default.

You have sixty-five days, starting from when you receive notice of the default status of your federal student loans, to object that claim. In order to do so successfully, you must be able to furnish written proof of loan repayment, a negotiated plan for payments along with the payments themselves, bankruptcy filing, your own personal disability that prevents loan repayment, having dropped out of school, or any other applicable reason that would make the lender unable to demand the borrowed funds.

What You Can Do About It

There are some options regarding what you can do about your default student loans. Choosing the right option for your specific case might even mean being able to regain financial aid eligibility, make your credit rating better, and possibly have your student loan default stricken from your financial record.

Loan rehabilitation is the first, and often best, option to go with. Of all the options you have, only loan rehabilitation will let you protect your financial aid eligibility and recover your credit score. This option is only available to people who arrange to repay their default loan and then do so on nine consecutive occasions. These payments must be made within twenty days of their due dates and in full.

These payments must be voluntary, meaning that they cannot arrive to the lender by means of wage garnishing, lump sum payments, or legal proceedings.

When your student loan has gone to default, you can also keep your right to receive future financial aid by making arrangements to pay off your entire student loan by means of a one-time satisfactory payment. For payments to be acceptable, they must be made within fifteen days of their due dates six times consecutively. These payments are usually the accrued interest rate or fifty.