r/StudentLoans

163K archived posts · Nov 2011 – Sep 2026

/r/StudentLoans: Reddit's hub for advice, articles, and discussion about educational loans

r/StudentLoans

/r/StudentLoans: Reddit's hub for advice, articles, and general discussion about getting and repaying student loans.

Created Apr 19, 2010

617KMembers (last snapshot)

163KArchived posts

Welcome to r/StudentLoans, the largest and oldest reddit community for discussion, information, and assistance related to the topic of student loan debt. Please feel free to join the conversation, discuss experiences, or ask for help.

Rules:

No referral links/codes. Do not offer or ask for referral codes. Do not post your link/code here. Do not link to another site or subreddit where you have posted your referral link/code.
No spam, marketing, market research, or self-promotion. Even without referral links, advertising another site where you can get financial benefit (from ads, sales, or otherwise) is not allowed. This also includes market research and focus group-style testing of products and services. If you have good advice to share, then copy it here in full so that the community can benefit. (Exceptions may be made at the mods' discretion for bona fide non-profit groups and other particularly helpful resources.)
No crowdfunding. Do not request funding or co-signing of your debt. Do not offer to pay or co-sign another's debt here, regardless of method. This community is for advice and discussion, not to facilitate transfer of money.
No advocating default. As an advice community, our primary goal is helping people work to improve their situation through legal means, including honoring their valid contracts. Sometimes default is unavoidable, in which case we'll provide support and advice for managing it, but this is not the place to advocate intentional default or get advice about defaulting on purpose.
Do not post private details or direct contact information for loan servicer employees, ED employees, or anyone else that's not officially available.
Before posting any kind of survey, call for interviews, or request for personal information, get moderator approval. We'll want to know: a) who you are, b) what company/group/school you're with, c) what the purpose of the data collection is, d) how you'll protect respondents' privacy, and e) how the data collected will benefit the r/StudentLoans community. Bona fide journalists, researchers, and non-profits are more likely to be approved; for-profit companies will be viewed more skeptically.
Comply with the principles of reddiquette and obey the site-wide rules. Mods will remove rude, offensive, unhelpful, off-topic, trollish, law-breaking, and other inappropriate content.
Users claiming to be professionals must be verified by the mods. Full explanation of this rule and the verification process here..

NOTES: The goal is to be unbiased and clear with news and information pertaining to student loans. Mods will be vigilant in ensuring personal opinion doesn't cloud the facts. While every attempt will be made by the mods to ensure the information provided and opinions voiced will be relevant and accurate, you should ALWAYS read the fine print for any loan you are considering.

You should never have to pay for help with your student loans. There isn't a person or entity on the planet that can get you a better deal, or access to a benefit or program, that you can't get yourself, for free, by working directly through your loan holder.

Most of the knowledge-base here is related to the United States. Questions from all around the world are welcome, but we suggest also asking in subreddits related to your school or nation/region if you don't get a prompt response here.

Useful links:

StudentAid.gov : Just about anything you'd want to know about the basics of federal financial aid, including student loans.
FSA Dashboard : Your Federal Student Aid account (formerly called NSLDS) is the U.S. Department of Education's official database for student aid. Your federal student loans will appear here and you can get information about their status and your loan servicer.
FAFSA : The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is the largest provider of student financial aid in the nation. Submitting the FAFSA is the only way to get this aid.
Annual Credit Report.com : This site, mandated by the federal government, lets you pull your full credit reports from all three major bureaus for free, now once per week. (Your private student loans will appear here.) This pull does not impact your credit score.
r/PSLF : Our sister sub specifically for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
ED's Loan Simulator : Official calculator for federal loan repayment plans.

Subreddit specific links:

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