Depending on who is holding your loans, there are ways of getting around the problems. I didn't go to college until I was 27, and by the time I finished, had over $120,000 of student loans. (undergraduate and graduate). Three years after I left school and had a great job, a pain condition I had markedly worsened and my income plummeted to below the poverty level.

Here are some things to check.
If you don't know who holds your loans ie salliemae etc, call the school you went to. They probably have records and though it may take some brow beating, they should be able to find the information for you.

Call the loan officer who holds your loan, and tell them about the problems you are having. Make sure to get their name, agent number, and record the time and date you made the call. Ask them to send you a form for income sensitive repayment. Those are based on how much you make each month. Many loans will also give you a grace period if you don't have a job.

Realize that most of those grace periods and income sensitive repayment plans are going to warn you that the interest is accruing daily. Don't worry about that. There isn't anything you can do about it and its not worth pulling your hair out. (I've been out of school for close to 2 decades and still owe over $50,000). IF you fixate on that, it will drive you insane.

Even if you can't get an income sensitive loan repayment plan, send anything, even if it is $5. That shows a willingness to try and work with them.

After 25 years, anything left on your loan is automatically resorbed by the company holding your loan. I forget when that law came into effect, and its probably a long way off for you anyway.

To help rebuild your credit. Get a really cheap credit card, one that doesn't require annual fees. Get just a very small line of credit, say $1,000. and then start using it to buy extremely cheap things. Say, a pair of socks. something you know for a fact that you can pay the entire sum for when the bill comes. Each time you pay the entire bill, it helps re-establish your credit. Just don't fall to the temptation to use the card for something bigger. If you can't pay for it at the time of purchase, don't use the card for it. Credit cards are nice, but if you pay the minumum balance, you wind up paying far more than the item cost to begin with. So, you get your card, go to say, walmart, get a two dollar pair of socks and charge it. When the bill comes at the end of the month, pay the whole two dollars. Does that make sense? (Sometimes I think I'm making sense when I'm not).

Good luck with the loans. There are far better things to worry about. Worst case scenerio would be for them to take you to court and garnish your wages. If you aren't making anything, guess what, there isn't anything there to garnish. There are people out there owning hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of loans after medical school and graduate school, and those loans are due whether the people are able to get a job in their field or not. Your loan is probably small potatoes to the loan people. That doesn't mean just blow it off, because that just makes it harder for others to get loans, but it does mean, put it in perspective.

Sam2