You have to begin paying back Stafford Loans 6 months after graduation, or when you drop to less than a half time student. The standard repayment term for this loan is 10 years.

You may also extend your loan period by deferring your loan or consolidating it. There are four repayment options.

Standard- pay a fixed amount each month for 10 years

Graduated- Make lower payments initially, and then payments increase, first payments are generally interest only

Income Sensitive- bases monthly payment on yearly income, payment can rise or fall

Extended- for loans totaling more than $30,000. repayment for a period of up to 25 years

You can defer loans if you are attending school half time, are unemployed, are in grad school, or experiencing economic hardship.

Another option would be to consolidate your Stafford loans.

Like the first poster said, you get a 6 month grace period after graduation where you don’t have to pay as the logic is that you will be looking for a job. Then you go in to repayment. How long it takes to repay depends upon a few factors. First, it depends on how much you borrowed (the more you borrowed, the longer it will take to pay back). Second, it depends on your interest rate and repayment plan. When you go to your mandatory entry/exit workshop for the loan (usually you can do it online) they will show you the different rate and payment plans offered. Finally, the time it takes to pay off the loan depends on how much you can pay. There is no penalty for prepayment on the Stafford loan so if you happened to have some extra money laying around (lucky you) you can pay as much as you want per month or in a lump sum.

When we refinanced our house, I used some of that money to pay off my Stafford…so the loan that should have taken 15 years to pay off only took 1 1/2 year!

After 6 months from graduation. The 6 months is considered the grace period, and then you would be expected to pay after that. You would have up to 30 years to repay it, but pay it quick because you don’t want to pay a lot for interest.

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Interesting! Never really gave this much thought

it depends…