Many people that want to go to college and can’t afford to pay for it themselves; use student loans.  These loans pay for tuition and books and can often be the difference between earning a degree and never getting more than a high school diploma.  It can become a problem when you graduate and are left with an enormous debt!

There is not statute of limitations on collecting student loan debt.  Most times student loans cannot even be discharged in bankruptcy.  Therefore, once you have this debt, it is yours forever.

You can contact the government and work out payment arrangements if the installment payments that they automatically send you upon graduation are too steep for your budget.

You can also ask for temporary delays on starting to repay student loans based upon your income. You can delay repayment a few times if you can prove that you are not making enough money to begin payments.

However, if you fail to contact and just don’t pay anything on your student loan balances, you will be subject to some pretty aggressive collection methods!  One of which is the student loans wage garnishment.

The student loans wage garnishment involves the government literally taking a portion of each and every paycheck you earn until the debt is repaid.  They can legally take up to 15% of your paycheck each and every payday.  These student loans wage garnishments will not go away until you pay off your debt in full.  You can ask to have them released, but unless you have the ability to repay your balance in full, the likelihood of having student loans wage garnishments released is slim to none.

On top of student loans wage garnishment, the government will also take your tax refunds every year until your debt is paid.

If your student loans are partially through private lenders, you can be sued.  They have the right to sue you for the student loan balance and there is no time limit, no statute of limitations, which means they can sue you even 20 years after your graduation.

If you receive federal benefits such as social security retirement benefits or social security disability benefits the government can take up to 15% in order to collect on your student loans. There are guidelines wherein they can take either 15% or anything above $750 a month, whichever is less.   For example, if you make $900 a month from federal benefits the government will take $135 every month as 15% would be $150 they have to take the lesser amount.

You can easily see how financially devastating failing to pay your student loan debt can be! You can avoid student loan wage garnishments and other collection activities by contacting the government and/or the private lending institution and setting up affordable monthly payments!  Don’t procrastinate as you could find yourself much worse off than if you had just made the monthly payments!

This is serious and should be given the priority it deserves.