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We know that student loans are a tough topic, and we want to help.

We’ve been studying this issue for a long time, and we’ve found that there are certain steps you can take to get rid of your student loans. Here are some tips:

1. Make sure you know how much money you owe, who owes it to you, and when it’s due. This is the most important thing—you need to know the details before you can start working on getting rid of your student loans.
2. Talk with your lender before you start repaying your loan. They may be willing to work out a deal with you if they know what kind of trouble you’re in and why—and if they know that repaying isn’t in their best interest either!
3. Ask for help from an expert who understands how student loans work and knows how to get them discharged when necessary (like us!).

8 Ways To Eliminate Your Student Loan Debt

1. Qualify For A Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Program

The first way to eliminate your student loan debt applies to people with Federal student loans. These are student loans that are typically handled by the Department of Education or one of the student loan servicing companies. These include many different student loan programs handled by the Federal government.

There are three major, and several smaller student loan forgiveness programs. The most popular Federal student loan forgiveness program is Public Service Loan Forgiveness. This program offers student loan forgiveness to people who work in public service for 10 years. Public service not only includes government jobs, but it also includes many non-profit jobs, education jobs, and service jobs like law enforcement or public safety.

The other two common ways to get Federal student loan forgiveness is to be a teacher, which has it’s own Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program (which doesn’t cover as much as PSLF), and military service loan forgiveness (which is also being phased out due to the PSLF program).https://www.youtube.com/embed/scH7S9_vln0?rel=0&modestbranding=1&controls=1&showinfo=1&fs=1&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1

2. Find State Assistance For Your Student Loans

Many states also offer various student loan forgiveness programs for your student loans. 46 out of 50 states offer at least one program, with some states offering many different programs to cover a wide variety of loan types, employment, and more. In fact, Kansas offers student loan forgiveness of up to $15,000 for just living in certain parts of the state.

California, for example, offers student loan forgiveness for doctors, health professionals, and dentists. Meanwhile, Texas offers student loan forgiveness for professors, speech therapists, nurses, doctors, teachers, and lawyers.

Or my personal favorite, Maryland offers loan forgiveness for buying a house in Maryland!

Before you give up on not qualifying for Federal loan forgiveness programs, check your state and see if they offer any incentives or assistance: Student Loan Forgiveness by State.

3. Find Out If Your Employer Offers Tuition Reimbursement

Did you know that more and more employers are offering tuition reimbursement to help their employees pay for school. It’s one of the ways that I paid for school – because I worked full time while getting my college degree. Some companies, like Starbucks, even offer their employees full degree programs as part of their employee benefits.

Even better, some companies are now offering their employees Student Loan Repayment Programs – where the company is paying off portions of their employee’s student loan debt.

Working during college is one of the smartest moves that any student can make. But if you’re already working, why not make sure that you’re taking advantage of all your employers benefits and see if you can’t eliminate or erase some of your student loan debt with a tuition reimbursement program. Many of these programs require you to pay up-front (thus take out student loans), and then provide proof of course completion to your employer. Once you’ve completed the class, your employer will typically reimburse you through your paycheck.

Already done with school and buried in student loan debt? Some employers offer signing bonuses and other perks to potential employees. But you have to ask. Along with negotiating that first salary after graduation, you need to see if you’re employer will offer you any help with your student loan debt.

4. Consolidate Your Federal Student Loans

The next option to try to help you eliminate your student loan debt is to consolidate your Federal student loans. Now, while consolidation by itself won’t help you lower your payments or your student loan balance, what it will allow you to do is to be financially organized.

When you start college before your Freshman year, you’ve likely already signed up for your first student loan. Then, you sign up and receive a new student loan each year. And if your Federal student loan doesn’t cover the full balance of your tuition, you likely have private loans as well (which we’ll cover below). That means you could have four or more different loans and payments. How confusing!

To make matters worse, each of these loans could have a different payment amount and due date. If you mess up one payment, you could harm your credit score and be hurting your financial future.

5. Find A Repayment Plan That Matches Your Ability To Pay

The next step in eliminating your student loan debt is to find a repayment plan that matches your ability to pay. After you graduate, you are automatically enrolled in the Standard Repayment Plan. This is 10 years of even payments – which may not work for all borrowers. The trouble is, many graduates don’t know that they can change this plan – they just assume they are stuck with that student loan payment.

If you have Federal student loans, there are many repayment plans that could help you make your student loan debt more manageable – which, in turn, will help you eliminate your debt faster.

If you plan on your income going up in a few years after graduation, you could look at a repayment plan like Graduated, which has a lower up-front payment that rises over time. If you want a lower monthly payment, but are okay with paying it over a longer time, look into the Extended repayment plan.

6. Setup An Income-Based Repayment Plan With Loan Forgiveness

When selecting a repayment plan, if any of the above Standard options still don’t work, Federal loans offer income-based repayment plans. There are several versions of this, but the most popular are Income-Based Repayment (IBR) and Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE).

The great thing about IBR and PAYE is that they offer a “secret” benefit – student loan forgiveness. Many people don’t realize is that both of these plans offer student loan forgiveness at the end of the repayment term. Any remaining balance on the loan will be forgiven, but unlike the other Federal student loan forgiveness plans, you will owe taxes on the amount forgiven. Either way, this is an excellent benefit.

With both of these plans, you simply provide proof of income, and the Department of Education calculates a monthly payment for you that is 10% of your discretionary income. That means your monthly student loan payment will be affordable! You do have to resubmit your income annually, and your payment could rise as your income rises.

If you’re in Public Service, signing up for IBR or PAYE and combining it with PSLF is one of the best ways to minimize your student loan debt.

7. Refinance Your Student Loans

If you have private student loans, the best way to start eliminating this debt is to refinance your private loans at a lower interest rate. This will not only save you money in interest over the life of the loan, but it will also lower your payment up front.

One of the best tricks is to refinance your loans at a lower payment, but continue paying your previous payment amount. This could potentially shave years off your loan, saving you hundreds or thousands of dollars.

One of the best ways to go about refinancing your student loans is to look at a comparison tool like Credible. Credible helps your receive and compare offers from multiple lenders after filling out a single form, allowing you to find and select the loan with the lowest interest rate and best terms. As a bonus, College Investor readers can get a up to a $1,000 gift card bonus when they refinance with Credible!

You can check out our list of the best student loan refinancing lenders here.

One of the biggest concerns about private student loans is that most private student loans are variable rate. We’ve put together an in-depth explanation of variable rate private student loans, and how, in most scenarios, the money saved by the lower up-front payment is almost always worth it. It’s only in very rare circumstances where your variable rate payment will be higher than your fixed rate payment.

8. Earn More Money

Finally, if none of these options work (or none of them totally eliminate your student loan debt), the next best thing you can do is earn more money. I’m a firm believer that everyone can earn an extra $100 per month if they try to. That extra $100 per month can be applied to your student loan debt, eliminating $1,200 per year from your loan balance!

Don’t know where to start? You can easily start by earning extra money doing things that you already do, or you can pick up one of these 50+ side businesses. The options are endless. Check out our full guide on earning extra money here.

It may sound counter-intuitive, but earning more is a great way to pay off student loan debt. In fact, the aspiration to earn more money was probably the reason you went to school (and took out student loans) to begin with.

how can i get rid of my student loans

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The hard part of dealing with student loan debt isn’t making payments on it. The hard part is navigating the complex world that is the student loan repayment system. There are multiple repayment plans, student loan forgiveness programs, different options offered by each state, and more.

Every story I hear about student loans is similar: I have this debt, and I want it gone. Of course you do! I want it gone for you! But where do you start?

I wanted to break down the best strategies that you can use to erase your student loan debt. Maybe these relate to your situation and you can follow this guide today. Not all of these will eliminate your total student loan debt, but each solution can help.

If you’re not quite sure where to start or what to do, consider using a tool like Chipper. Chipper is a student loan help tool that will tell you the best student loan repayment plan and forgiveness options. They even have a concierge option that will work with you! 

How Can I Get Rid of Student Loans Without Paying?

There’s no simple way to get rid of student loans without paying, but there are forgiveness options if you can qualify.#

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Find the latest

• Ready for repayment? Forbearance ends Aug. 31
• Do you have a new servicer? Student loan servicer changes
• Will PSLF work for you now? Key forgiveness updates
• Keep your guard up: How to spot a student loan scam

There’s no simple way to get rid of student loans without paying. But for federal student loans, there are forgiveness programs available after you make payments and meet other qualifications.

The most easily accessible student loan forgiveness programs include:

• Public Service Loan Forgiveness: After 10 years of making payments while working full time for a qualifying government or nonprofit employer, the rest of your loan debt is forgiven. It’s tough to qualify, and you’ll need to submit an employment certification form every year in the 10 years it takes to qualify so you stay on track.
• Forgiveness through income-driven repayment: This is your best option to keep payments manageable. Your monthly bill amount is set at a portion of your income, and after 20 or 25 years, your remaining debt is forgiven.
• Teacher Loan Forgiveness: After teaching full time for five consecutive years at a qualifying low-income school, you could see up to $17,500 of your loans forgiven.

Find out about additional forgiveness programs.

Any other forgiveness programs that promise to get rid of your debt without making payments are a scam. Your loans can be forgiven only by your lender or servicer.

»  MORE: What are the odds I’ll get student loan forgiveness?

How to get rid of private student debt

One of the few ways to get rid of private student debt is through discharge bankruptcy. It’s an arduous — and expensive — process. You’ll have to file Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy, then file an additional lawsuit known as an adversary proceeding. You’ll likely need a bankruptcy attorney throughout the process, which can cost thousands.

If you’re having difficulty making payments, your best option is to contact your private loan holder about renegotiating your payment or taking a short-term payment pause.

» MORE: Private student loan bankruptcy: Is it getting easier?

Additional ways loans may be forgiven

There are two other instances in which your loans may be forgiven without making a payment:

• Total and permanent disability discharge of both private and federal student loans is possible if you become disabled and can no longer work.
• Death discharge forgives all federal and private student loans borrowed since Nov. 20, 2018.

If you are in a dire student loan situation, such as default, one additional option to consider is settling your debt for less than you owe. If you’re successful, it won’t get rid of all your debt, but it can help ease the burden.

If you’re looking for a way to get rid of your student loans, the first thing you need to do is understand what you owe. You can figure that out by logging into your account on the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) and looking for your “debt summary.” Once you’ve done that, it’s time to make a plan.

If you’re hoping to work with your lender directly, keep in mind that most lenders will require you to have a steady income before they’ll agree to help you lower your payments or forgive some of the balance. Your lender may also be willing to work with you if they see that you’re making an effort at repayment. If you’ve made every payment on time and are paying as much as possible toward your debt, then this is something they may take into consideration.

If working directly with your lender isn’t an option for some reason or another, there are other options available to help reduce the burden of paying back student loans. For example:

Loan forgiveness programs: Some borrowers may qualify for loan forgiveness programs offered by the Department of Education or their state government. These programs allow certain students who made qualifying payments on their loans after graduating from certain schools or completing certain