Question:
Dear Steve,
My uncle has a parent plus loan with Navient and is 76-years-old, is retired and only has Social Security income of about $1700 a month to live on.
Navient is insisting that he still has to make his student loan payment monthly payment.
Is that true?
Is there some way of getting a zero payment plan at this stage since he is not working and has to live on his social security income.
Charles
Answer:
Dear Charles,
Navient should have told your uncle that if he consolidated his current Parent PLUS loan into a new Direct Loan and then elected an income-driven repayment plan that his payment might be as low as zero dollars a month and keep him out of default.
There is no cost to do any of this. I would suggest you are a great person to help him with this and if you can get on a three-way call with Navient to help him navigate this, it should get resolved.
Navient has been sued by a number of entities for not providing such commonsense advice so I’m not surprised they blew it in helping your uncle.

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This is excellent advice. If the writer’s uncle is able to get into an income-based repayment plan with low income-based monthly payments (perhaps even zero), that is the best option.
Asked question about Parent PLUS and retirement.
Answered.