Your First Student Loan Payment Is Coming: A New Grad's 30-Minute Setup

Updated June 2026

Six months after you graduate, your federal loans enter repayment — and the plan you land on by default is rarely the one that serves you best. Four decisions, about 30 minutes total.

1. Find out what you actually owe (5 minutes)

Log in at StudentAid.gov → My Aid. Note your total balance, weighted interest rate, loan types, and servicer. Don’t rely on memory — many grads discover loans they forgot, or a servicer different from the one that emailed them. (Private loans won’t appear here; check your credit report for those.)

2. Pick a plan deliberately (15 minutes)

Graduating into the post-2026 system, your realistic menu:

• Standard (10-year) — highest payment, lowest total cost. Right if your income comfortably covers it.
• RAP — payment tied to income (1–10% of AGI), unpaid interest waived, $50/month principal guarantee. Right if you’re starting on an entry salary, especially with kids.
• IBR — 10% of income above ~150% of the poverty line. Often $0 for low starting salaries, and a 20-year forgiveness clock.

One date that matters: loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2026 can only be repaid under RAP or the new standard plans. If you graduated in 2026 or earlier, your loans predate the cutoff and IBR stays on your menu — borrowers who take out new loans after that date won’t have it for those loans.

The wrong instinct is picking the lowest payment reflexively — low payments mean long timelines and more total interest unless forgiveness is part of your strategy. Compare all of them with your numbers, then apply free at studentaid.gov/idr.

3. Check the PSLF box early (5 minutes)

Working for a school, hospital system, government agency, or nonprofit? You may be on a 10-year tax-free forgiveness track starting from your first payment — but only qualifying plans count, and you should certify employment from day one. Check eligibility here. New grads who set this up at job #1 routinely save five figures versus those who discover it at year 35.

4. Set up autopay (5 minutes)

Enroll in autopay with your servicer: it’s a 0.25% interest rate discount and removes the single most common way new borrowers damage their credit — a forgotten first payment to a servicer they’d never heard from before.

The one mistake to avoid

Don’t ignore the mail. Servicers change, payments recalculate, and policies are in flux through 2028. Anything from your servicer or “studentaid.gov” gets opened — and anything asking you to pay a company to manage these programs gets deleted. Everything above is free.