I just dealt with this a couple months ago, my loans payments were coming up and as I've been out of work for 3 years due to my illness I had no income to repay with. I talked to a lovely lady on the phone and explained that I would be looking for employment in the next 5 years, so I didn't think I qualified for permanent disability, but as of then I wasn't able to work and needed more time. So she suggested the income based repayment plan, because I had no income my payments were $0. Yep, nada. And they still counted to the 25 year payments forgiveness program. Now because you have income you're payment will be some amount, I believe it's around 10% of your income, but it's affordable in most cases and will keep you out of trouble with the loan companies. Check into it. There'll be a link to income based repayment plans on whoever your loan servicing site is.