Hi Heather, finding your site this morning has been very helpful. Like most people on here, I stress about student loans most everyday, and hope when I graduate, I can get a plan.

I am currently in the PSLF but in deferment while in grad school. After I finished nursing school, I consolidated the loans from my first undergrad degree with my nursing loans and started paying. I only made about 5 months of payments before entering deferment.

Question 1: If I don’t consolidate my past loans with the ones I have taken out for grad school, what is the payment options then? From reading the information on here, if I do consolidate, I will lose the 5 months and start my 120 months over again?

Question 2: I work as an RN in a hospital that is not-for-profit which qualified me for the PSLF program. When I graduate in December 2015, I will be a family nurse practitioner. I would prefer to work in a family practice specialty in a rural area. So i need to know if working in a family practice will still allow me to remain in the PSLF program?

Thanks
Jacob
This is all I can find
“A private non-profit organization (that is not a labor union or a partisan political organization) that provides at least one of the following public services:”
“Public health (including nurses, nurse practitioners, nurses in a clinical setting, and full-time professionals engaged in health care practitioner occupations and health care support occupations)”

youneek28 - 23 February 2015 11:31 AM

Question 1: If I don’t consolidate my past loans with the ones I have taken out for grad school, what is the payment options then? From reading the information on here, if I do consolidate, I will lose the 5 months and start my 120 months over again?

Question 2: I work as an RN in a hospital that is not-for-profit which qualified me for the PSLF program. When I graduate in December 2015, I will be a family nurse practitioner. I would prefer to work in a family practice specialty in a rural area. So i need to know if working in a family practice will still allow me to remain in the PSLF program?

 

1.  Consolidation would indeed cause any previous qualifying payments to go away.  A borrower could have different numbers of qualifying payments on different loans.  For example, grad school loans are eligible for IBR and PSLF but would only begin moving towards forgiveness after repayment begins.

2. No employment in a for-profit setting is considered qualifying for PSLF.  IBR is still available, but no PSLF.