Student loans just like your car or mortgage loans need to be paid timely. The more you delay, the difficult it gets for you to completely repay them. If you are facing trouble in repaying your student loans, you can take help of several debt relief options. Student Debt Relief Programs Educational loans, if not paid on time are charged with late fees. In case you are unable to repay your loans on time, as mentioned in the legal documents while you took the loan, you may end up in default, which is quite a serious financial setback. If you are in default, your credit rating will be spoiled and legal action can be taken against you by federal government, your loan service provider, your educational institution and even by your loan guarantor. If you have been finding it difficult to make payments of your loan for quite some time, it is time to rush to your loan service provider or the school, college that gave you the loan, and seek query. If you approach them timely, you may benefit from some other relief options. It is a blunder not to mention your creditors that you are unable to pay monthly dues. They will retaliate more badly, if you end up with a huge amount unpaid. If you delay, your financial situation will only be burdened with higher interest rates and added principal amount. Repayment Plan Changes After you have graduated from your college and it is officially the time to start repaying your loans, you can choose a debt repayment plan based on your financial situation. Under several student loan repayment plans, you'll get a time frame of 10 to 25 years to repay your loans. All repayment plans will depend on the type of federal loan program you have opted for. Standard Repayment, Extended Repayment, Graduated Repayment and Income Based Repayment (IBR) Effective July 1, 2009 are some options available to federal student loan candidates. Deferment If you are able to meet several requirements established under the loan program you've taken, you may be granted a deferment that will allow you to temporarily halt the process of loan payment. There are several rules and laws and regarding that and it specifically depends on your type of federal loan. Forbearance If you are unable to qualify for a deferment, you should try for forbearance. In this procedure, you will be allowed to pay your loans, in parts or the time for your loan repayment may be extended. Debt Consolidation It is the most logical step to take especially when students have trouble repaying either federal or private loans. By consolidating private student loans, multiple loans can be clubbed in one loan repayment program, with some relief in interest rates. This reduces burden on students to quite a great extent as they don't have to manage procedures of multiple loan payments at several places. Public Service Employee Forgiveness Programs The federal government has come up with this scheme to grant flexibility to employees of public jobs for repaying their student loans.

Note: Discussing all debt relief options with their complete details is beyond the purview of this article. To get expert advice and know all details about debt repayment plans, please visit the official website of the U.S. Department of Education. For information on Federal loans, you can contact, Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-4-FED-AID (1-800-433-3243; TTY 1-800-730-8913)

Students planning to take educational loans must first try to take full benefit of federal loan programs instead of approaching private loan lenders. This is because federal programs have several repayment options and they are flexible in nature, unlike private loans. Besides, interest rates of student private loans are not usually the same as advertised in commercials. Make sure that you and your parents have discussed the loan issue with your school's/college's financial aid office properly. Don't jump in the student loan market without expert consultation. The information briefed above was specifically dedicated to federal loans because they offer a wide range of options to student for repayment. Private loans are more difficult to repay and consolidation works the best in such cases, as aforementioned earlier. If you have taken private student loan, seek proper counseling with the loan service provider and ask for options to make the repayment process easier for you.