When it comes time to manage your student loan debt, the first question to ask is, “How much student loan debt do I have?”
Knowing the answer will help you see how far you’ve come when you’re in the payment process, and it can also be beneficial if you’re looking to refinance your loans. It is also good to track your balance to be sure your payments are applied correctly.
Finding your student loan balance may be challenging if you have multiple loans. Here, we’ll tell you how to find your student loan balance totals, plus give you strategies to pay them off.
How Much Student Loan Debt Do I Have?
If you’ve received student loan funds, you may have an idea of what you owe, but that does not give a full picture of your total debt. In most cases, interest accrues on the loan from the date you received the funds. Therefore, the total student loan balance is often higher due to interest being added.
To find out how much you owe in student loans, it’s good to know whether you have federal or private student loans. Determining your student loan total will take a little more effort if you are unsure which type you have or if you have both types.
How to Check Your Student Loan Balance: Federal Loans
If you aren’t sure what your balance is or who your federal student loan servicer is, there are two different ways to find that information:
- Use the Federal Student Aid dashboard: You can log into your account with Federal Student Aid (FSA) with your FSA ID and password. Once you’re signed in, you can view what federal loans are under your name, their existing balance, and the servicers handling them.
- Contact your student loan servicer: If your loans are in repayment, you can reach out to your loan servicer for details about your balance and loan status. If you don’t know who your loan servicer is, you can call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243.
How to Check Your Student Loan Balance: Private Loans
You may have to do a little more work to find your private student loan balance since there’s no centralized system for private loan information.
The first thing to check is your credit report. You can obtain a free credit report once every twelve months. The report will contain information about your loan providers, balance, and payment history.
This should provide a good start to determine the balances, although credit reports sometimes have mistakes. If something seems inaccurate, try finding your original loan contracts, then follow up with the loan provider directly.
If your account is in deferment or forbearance — or if you’re making reduced payments due to a financial hardship — those statuses may be listed on your credit report. For example, your account could be listed as “account in forbearance.” However, how those statuses are reported varies by lender.
You can also check with your school’s financial aid office for any information they have on loans you received.
My Student Loan Balance Is $0. Are My Loans Gone?
If you log into your account and see a $0 balance, you may be ready to celebrate that you’re debt-free. But unless you were eligible for loan forgiveness through Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) or Total and Permanent Disability Discharge, your loans weren’t eliminated. Instead, two things could have happened:
- Your loans were transferred: Recently, several federal loan servicer contracts ended, so millions of loans were moved to other loan servicers. And for private loans, loans are often sold to other servicers. You may not have received a notification if your previous servicer didn’t have up-to-date contact information. If your account shows a $0 account balance, contact your loan servicer to find out if the account was transferred.
- Your loans were discharged: Several high-profile cases have recently involved schools and loan discharges. If you attended a school like ITT Technical Institute or Corinthian Colleges, your loans may have been discharged under borrower defense for repayment.
Strategies to Reduce Your Student Loan Balance Faster
Once you determine your student loan balance, if you are ready to pay your loans off quickly, here are some strategies to consider:
Applying Extra Payments
One of the best ways to pay off your student loans quicker is to apply extra payments towards the loan’s principal. If you don’t have room in your budget to make more than the minimum payment, try doing side jobs to earn some extra money. You could sell unused items around your house, dog sit, or deliver food or groceries. Use those funds to make extra student loan payments. Even an extra few dollars each month can make a big difference in interest savings.
If you receive money as a gift, earn a bonus at work, or receive extra money you didn’t expect, you can also use this “found” money to make additional payments on your loans. Although you may be tempted to use this money for something more fun, putting it towards your student loans can help you more quickly eliminate debt.
If paying off your debt quickly is a priority, try cutting back your expenses and putting that money toward extra student loan payments. To make the process more fun, try a different monthly challenge and use the funds typically spent on other budget categories towards your student loans. For example, you could try not to eat out for one month, make no new clothing purchases, or only attend free events.
Another way to reduce your balance more quickly is to make biweekly payments; divide your monthly payment into two and pay that amount every two weeks. Because there are 52 weeks in a year, you’ll make 26 payments with a biweekly payment schedule. That works out to the equivalent of 13 months of payments, so it’s easy to sneak in an extra payment without significantly affecting your budget or spending.
Look for Discounts
Federal student loan servicers and some private lenders offer discounts for enrolling in automatic monthly loan payments. Although the discount is not significant, usually a 0.25% interest rate reduction, every little bit helps to reduce your student loan balance.
Refinance Your Student Loans
Student loan refinancing involves obtaining a new loan to repay your previous student loans. When you refinance your loans, you can often shorten your repayment term to pay down debt faster.
Refinancing student loans can also help you save on interest costs over the life of the loan. You may be able to even lower your monthly payment depending on the interest rate you qualify for. To find out how much you may be able to save, use ELFI’s Student Loan Refinance Calculator.
Start Tackling Your Student Loan Balance
Once you know your student loan balance, you can develop a strategy for repaying it faster. One of the core benefits of student loan refinancing is that you can save a significant amount of money. And with ELFI, you can refinance your loans and choose a term between five and 15 years. ELFI offers competitive rates, and you can refinance undergraduate, graduate, and even parent student loans.
