My daughter has been in school for a couple of years - consecutively from 2010 - 2012 (spring 2010, fall 2010, spring 2011, fall 2011, spring 2012), until last fall (fall 2012) when she had a baby. She was out of school for *one* semester because she gave birth in September 2012 and could not register for fall classes.

However, as of January 2013, she was back full time. Although she was in grace during the fall, her status as of January was fulltime and her loans **never went into repayment**. Until last month!

She attended full time this past spring semester (and made good grades!) and will go back in the fall, starting in August. Her last class was in mid-May 2013.

She chose to not attend a summer semester this summer because it is not feasible for her financially (her aid only allows enough money to cover spring and fall semesters). She has never attended in the summer.

I was under the impression that students are not required to go to school 12 months a year in order to retain deferment during the summer - i.e., there is no requirement for a student to attend summer semesters in order to keep their loans from going into repayment status.

However, her servicer claims this is not true, and that she must attend 12 months a year. They claim that while she was full time in May, her status as of June was less than half time - therefore, her loans have entered repayment. They claim that in August she can request a new deferment for the fall.

I thought that there was some type of regulation governing this - at least, I know when we were being counseled on the loans we were advised that summer semesters are not required to keep from going into repayment status. Am I crazy? I have two other children in college and neither of them has had this happen to them - none of their loans have ever required repayment during the summer. I carefully worded my question to the servicer - I said “Are you telling me she HAS to go to school 12 months a year, including summer?” And the response was an emphatic “yes”.

Her loans are regular federal loans - not private loans. Can you offer any clarity on this for me? It is burdensome to a student to have to pay for summer semesters in order to keep their loans from going into repayment for the months of June and July. Furthermore, her servicer told me that even if she is full time in August, it could take “a long time” for them to accept the deferment for fall, and if she isn’t making payments, whether she is in school full time or not, her credit will be ruined”. I really feel like we’ve been misled about something here.

(And, obviously she would not choose the higher burden of summer tuition over repayment, but that’s not the point - I seriously thought summer breaks did not affect repayment status).

Thank you!!