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.
Steve
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.