BC Student Loan Repayment Assistance Programs
If you’ve finished college and you find that you are having problems repaying your BC student loans, there are numerous British Columbia student loan repayment assistance programs that you can take advantage of to lift the financial burden. No matter how great your career is, everyone has financial difficulties from time to time, and you shouldn’t let your BC student loans fall into default status because of this.
The first BC repayment assistance program that you should check into is the Interest Relief Program. This program is open to people who owe student loans, but have low income. If you are accepted for this program, interest will not accrue during the period of time that you are enrolled in the program. You can get interest relief for a period of six to thirty months, and you can even apply for an extension to receive interest relief for up to 54 months if you qualify.
Next, you may need to look into Principal Deferment. When you are having financial difficulties, you can literally ask that your payments be deferred for a while – or put on hold. If you are approved for this, your BC student loan payments can literally be put off for six months at a time. During this time, however, you will still need to make interest payments. When that six month period ends, if your financial situation has not improved, you can apply for another deferral. Your BC repayment period, however, will not be extended past 19 and a half years past the time that you entered into the repayment phase after finishing or leaving school.
You can also seek an Extended Amortization. This allows you to lower your payments by stretching out the length of time that you will make payments. Your payment cannot be less than $25 monthly, and the number of months for your loan cannot exceed 234 under the conditions of this program.
The Loan Remission Program may be able to offer some relief, but this is only available to those who had student loans prior to August 1, 2000, because it only applies to those who have British Columbia Risk Loans and British Columbia Guaranteed Loans, which are no longer issued. This BC student loan repayment assistance program will help to reduce your student loan debt, making it easier to repay, without quite as much financial burden.
You may be eligible for the BC Loan Forgiveness Program. The Loan Forgiveness Program is only available to people who are working in certain professions, including nursing professions, midwifery, pharmacy, medical, speech language pathology, occupational therapy, audiology, physiotherapy, psychology, technology teachers, teachers for the visually impaired, and teachers for the deaf and hard of hearing. In this case, the debt is forgiven at a rate of one third for each year that you are working in an approved profession in an underserved community. Additionally, the British Columbia Government will pay the interest on your student loans while you are active in the BC Loan Forgiveness Program.
A separate BC Student Loan Forgiveness Program that is offered is the Pacific Leaders BC Loan Forgiveness Program. The purpose of this program is to attract people to work in public service in British Columbia. Under the terms of this program, your loan is forgiven at a rate of 1/3 for each year of employment in public service, and after three years of such employment, the BC loan is forgiven in full.
Visit: British Columbia Student Loan Repayment Assistance Programs to learn more about any of these or to apply for these programs. Because education is expensive, you should take advantage of as many of these BC student repayment assistance programs as you are eligible for to help defray the cost of your education, and to make repaying the loans easier on your college wallet.
British Columbia Student Loan Repayment Assistance
British Columbia Student Loans in Default helpful Guidelines
