How default and missing student loan payments can affect your credit

Like many adults in America, you too struggle with outstanding student-loan debt. If you also have poor credit, you may ask yourself: how do student loans affect my credit? Like any other debt, the loan amount, monthly payment, and your payment history all play a role in shaping your credit score. You might especially worry how student loans affect your credit if you have missed a payment or, worse, you’ve defaulted.

Let’s first discuss the impacts of how missing a student loan payment affects your credit. Your lender may impose late fees immediately. More often than not, they’ll wait thirty days before reporting the infraction to the three primary credit bureaus. It can stay on your credit score for seven years and drop it by a hundred points. However, taking swift action either by calling your lender or sending them a letter may help you fully or partially rectify the matter.

Defaulting on a student loan is clearly a more serious situation. Whether that’s due to tough luck or poor choices, you may now have to grapple with a collection agency. Simply paying off the loan is the best thing you can do here, but that’s probably not an option if your loan is five or six figures long. You may wonder if or how credit repair can help with student loan default. A skillful credit repair specialist can help you sort through a number of options like rehabilitation or consolidation loans. A student loan default credit repair specialist may also suggest an income-driven repayment plan to help make your debt reduction more tenable.