If you missed the June 30 student loan consolidation deadline, you might be wondering if there’s anything you can do now to apply for the one-time benefit.
While there’s a chance you may be able to sneak a loan consolidation in within the next few days, Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert and CNET Expert Review Board member, says it’s likely that you’ve missed the deadline.
The Department of Education originally set this deadline for April 30 but extended it by two months because processing consolidation applications was taking more time than expected.
Consolidating your student loans before June 30 would have allowed borrowers with FFEL, HEAL, Perkins and ParentPlus loans who were not previously eligible for forgiveness programs to consolidate into a new loan with debt relief perks. If you consolidated before the deadline, you may have boosted your payment count, which could get you forgiveness sooner under income-driven repayment plans or the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
With the deadline behind us, here’s what’s next for student loan forgiveness -- and what you should do if you missed the consolidation window.
Read more: Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan on Hold. Experts Weigh In on What’s Next for the SAVE Plan
Where student debt relief currently stands
Parts of the Biden-Harris administration’s SAVE repayment plan are currently on hold after they were rejected by two courts. At the moment, forgiveness through SAVE is also temporarily paused. If you have already received forgiveness through SAVE, the latest rulings will not impact your loan balance.
Despite this roadblock, there are still several ways you can apply for student loan forgiveness. If you’re on an income-driven repayment plan, you could qualify for debt cancellation after 10 to 25 years of qualifying payments. If you’re a teacher or public service employee, you might be eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program after you make 120 qualifying loan payments.
The catch for most of these debt relief programs is that only certain federal student loans qualify for maximum relief. So, enrolling in an income-driven repayment plan now might still be helpful.
“You don’t necessarily need to be in an income-driven repayment plan, but there are more options for forgiveness for borrowers who are in an IDR,” said Kantrowitz.
What if you missed the loan consolidation deadline?
If you didn’t consolidate your loans and currently hold Direct Loans, they should still be eligible for debt relief under any federal programs you qualify for. You just might have to wait longer for forgiveness.
For example, if you had a federal undergraduate Direct Loan from 2004 and you’re enrolled in an IDR, it could be canceled this year since it’s been in repayment for 20 years. However, if you have a second undergraduate student loan you began repaying in 2010, it won’t be eligible for relief until 2030.
Consolidating your loans by the June 30, 2024, deadline could have allowed you to get debt relief for all of your loans sooner. Both would have been consolidated together, and your first qualifying payment for the new loan would have started in 2004, bringing you to the 20-year repayment requirement now.
But if your federal loans are not Direct loans, you may not qualify for debt relief without consolidating. You’ve missed the one-time payment count adjustment window, but consolidating may still make sense.
Can I still consolidate my student loans?
Yes, you can still consolidate your student loans. And if you have a FFEL, HEAL, Perkins or ParentPlus loan that’s not eligible for forgiveness, you may still want to. Consolidating these federal loan types could help you qualify for an income-driven repayment plan that can help you work toward loan forgiveness.
“The main type of loan to be cautious about is the Federal Perkins Loan since it has better benefits than a federal direct consolidation loan, except for some of the SAVE repayment plan benefits,” said Kantrowitz. If you don’t qualify for the Federal Perkins Loan benefits, then Kantrowitz says you may want to consider consolidating them, too.
Unlike consolidating before the June 30 deadline, doing so now is unlikely to apply your payment count on your oldest loan to your new consolidated loan. So, if you have two loans, one that’s been in repayment for 10 years and one for 20 years, your payment count may reset to zero. However, consolidating could still be worthwhile if your balance is high and you could benefit from debt relief programs.
If you have ParentPlus loans, you may want to consolidate regardless of the payment count if you’re hoping to get into the SAVE repayment plan. But you’ll need to consolidate your loans twice using a loophole called double consolidation. That loophole ends on July 1, 2025, said Kantrowitz. “Don’t procrastinate. If you miss that deadline, there will be no reprieve,” he added.
Read more: Skipping Student Loan Payments: What Happens if You Don’t Pay
What to do if you’re struggling to pay your student loan debt
If you can’t afford to pay your student loan debt, consider enrolling in an income-driven repayment plan. An IDR can help lower your monthly payment. But it will stretch out your repayment timeline, which means you could pay more over time. But a longer repayment timeline may be less of a concern if you’re eligible for debt relief under an IDR.
You can also reach out to your student loan servicer to see if they can lower your monthly repayment amount for a period of time. You might also qualify for forbearance or deferment, which can give you a respite from monthly payments temporarily.
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