How to avoid unwanted student loan deferment

mahamandarava — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:26:09 -0800

My student loans were put on deferment against my will -- how do I prevent this from happening in the future? I have a large federal consolidation loan from graduate school. I am now working full time and paying off my loans (automatic deductions from my bank account). This last semester I signed up for several classes at a community college. A month or so later, the U.S. Dept. of Ed sent me a notice saying my loan was put on deferment due to my part time student status.

I do not want to be put on deferment. I did not ask to be put on deferment. I want to pay off my huge debt as soon as possible! So I called up the Dept. of Ed. and asked to be taken out of deferment. The rep I spoke to did that (although my loans still went unpaid for a couple months). I then asked to not be put on deferment again without my OK. I was told that the deferment is automatic if my school reports my part time student status to them, and that if I wanted to stop this from happening in the future, I would have to tell my school not to release my student status to the Dept. of Ed.

So now I'm registering for next semester's classes and I don't want this to happen again. I went to my school today and asked them not to report my student status to the Dept. of Ed. The guy I spoke to told me there was nothing he could do, that they had to give that information if they were presented with a signed release. I don't remember ever signing a release, but who knows. I suspect either the school or the Dept. of Ed. or both is giving me inaccurate information. Googling this returns nothing -- all the sites I find talk about how to get a deferment, not how to get rid of one.

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How to avoid unwanted student loan deferment