If you have loans with different repayment histories, consolidating before June 30th would have been advisable. This article explains pre-June 30 rules and the rules that took effect on July 1.

The wrinkle that might work to your advantage is that when the courts got involved over the last couple of weeks, there were times before July 1 where the consolidation online application was not available. My hope is that they extend the deadline to benefit from the one-time adjustment by at least a couple of weeks. At the very least, they should give some flexiblity to the people who tried to consonsolidate before the deadline but were unable to do so.

Michael, thank you so much for taking the time to answer me. I did take a three year break from school due to Covid. I should have been more proactive about consolidating by the June 30th deadline. In any case, it sounds like it would be wise for me to apply for consolidation with the SAVE plan even now, after June 30th.

I’m glad to see that you are on top of your loans already, and it sounds like you’ve done a lot of the necessary homework. I do have a few quick thoughts on your situation.

First, signing up for SAVE is a fantastic idea, especially if you qualify for $0 per month payments.

Because you are on your grace period, your SAVE payments wouldn’t begin until after the grace period ends.

Consolidation would be the one way to cut the grace period short to get into repayment earlier. If you didn’t take a break from school and enter repayment previously, there likely wouldn’t have been any other reason to consolidate before the June 30 deadline.

I think it is very likely that they do give credit toward IDR and PSLF for this particular pause, though I haven’t gotten confirmation of that.

Also of note, the Court of Appeals just lifted the injuction on the transition to 5%, so this pause may end up only being for the month of July.