If you're having difficulty making payments, you can take a look at your possible options here for Student Loan Refinancing or here for Private Student Loans. Please ensure you thoroughly review all options prior to considering forbearance.
Forbearance helps clients who are experiencing temporary financial hardship. In certain situations, you may be eligible for forbearance, which temporarily postpones principal and interest payments to avoid delinquency and/or default. The most common reasons for forbearance include the following:
- Decrease in income (e.g., reduction in hours, unpaid leave, or change from full-time to part-time employment)
- Loss of employment
- Significant increase in costs that are essential to the home or family (e.g., increase in medical expenses, emergency home repairs, or child care)
- Unpaid maternity/paternity leave
Clients are eligible to receive up to 12 months of forbearance on their Earnest Student Loan Refinance or Earnest Private Student Loan over the life of the loan. Please note this includes Skip-A-Payment, which is processed as a 1-month forbearance and counts against the total 12-month forbearance allowance over the life of the loan. To be eligible for forbearance, you need to have first made at least three months of on-time, consecutive principal and interest payments.
For Earnest clients, we require a completed, signed, and dated request form to process a forbearance request. You can obtain a request form from our team by clicking the "Get In Touch" button at the bottom of this article. Once we receive your inquiry, our team will provide you with instructions on how to upload the request form to your online dashboard.
We encourage you to read the additional disclosures outlined on the request form, including the information regarding simple daily interest that will continue to accrue on your loan while in forbearance. Unpaid Interest on Earnest private student loans, also known as In-School Student Loans, may be capitalized (added to the Unpaid Principal) at the end of each forbearance, as permitted by law and your loan agreement. Interest will not be capitalized for refinanced student loans (Earnest Private Student Loan Refinance and NaviRefi Loans).
For NaviRefi clients, to process a forbearance request, please call our partners at MOHELA, at 855-203-4596. They are available Monday through Friday from 5:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. PT, except the last business day of each month, when they close at 2 p.m. PT.
All forbearance requests must be received no less than five business days prior to the beginning forbearance date. Requests received less than five business days before the desired start date will be reviewed and processed for the subsequent billing cycle. Payments remain due until approval is granted. If you’ve uploaded a completed form to your online dashboard and you do not hear back from our team within five business days of uploading your form, please reach out to us for an update by clicking the "Get In Touch" button found at the bottom of this article.