Postpone Payments With a Deferment or Forbearance

If you're experiencing a financial hardship, reducing or postponing your student loan payments may help.

If you can't make any payments at all, then a deferment or forbearance may be the right choice to keep your loan from entering default.

Consider This First

• Explore repayment options.
  If you can manage smaller payments, you may want to consider applying for an alternative repayment plan.
• A deferment or forbearance is temporary.
  These are authorized temporary suspensions of repayment, granted under certain circumstances.
• Interest keeps accruing.
  Even if a deferment or forbearance suspends your monthly payments, you are responsible for repaying all interest which continues to accrue during these periods. Any unpaid interest may be capitalized (added to the current principal balance) at the end of the deferment or forbearance period. The only exception to this is federally subsidized loans during periods of deferment because the government pays the interest.
  
  NOTE: When there are multiple, consecutive periods of deferment or forbearance, interest may capitalize at the end of each consecutive period. This depends on your loan program. Please contact us if you have any questions.
• You may become ineligible for certain incentives.
  If you use a deferment or forbearance, your eligibility may be delayed, or you may be disqualified for any incentive programs that your lenders may offer, such as co-signer release, interest rate reductions, and rebates.

About Deferment and Forbearance

	Deferment	Forbearance
What Is It	Deferment is a period of time during which your lender temporarily suspends your regular payments.	Forbearance is a period of time during which your lender temporarily reduces or suspends your regular payments.
Reasons to Apply	Enrollment in school Economic hardship Unemployment Military deployment	Unemployment Economic hardship Temporary hardship Natural disaster Military deployment
Eligible Loans	All loans in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), including: Stafford loans Supplemental loans for students PLUS loans Consolidation loans Some private education loans, depending on the loan type and lender	All loans in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), including: Stafford loans Supplemental loans for students PLUS loans Consolidation loans Some private education loans, depending on the loan type and lender
Who Pays the Interest	Subsidized federal loans—The government pays the daily interest that accrues. All other loan types—You are responsible for paying the daily interest that accrues.	All loans—You are responsible for paying the daily interest that accrues.
How to Apply	Find the form you need. Apply online or print and return the completed form to your loan servicer. NOTE: Sometimes a deferment is automatically applied on your behalf.	Find the form you need. Apply online or print and return the completed form to your loan servicer.

Loan programs come with limited amounts of deferment and forbearance time, so use these opportunities wisely.

Take our Postpone Payments Eligibility Quiz

Find out if your federal student loans are eligible for a deferment or forbearance and review the best options for postponing your payments.

Sign in to Account Access, our secure website, to take the quiz.

Helpful Tips

• If you are unable to make the monthly payments on your student loan, explore available options by signing in to Account Access immediately or contacting us for details about any reduced payments, deferment and forbearance options available to you.
• Always see if you qualify for a deferment before using a forbearance, since interest continues to accrue during forbearance no matter what type of loan you have.