Student loan debt is a financial burden on more than recent graduates. Around 6% of the total outstanding student loan debt is currently owed by parents facing collective debt of around $ 87 billion, according to Brooking Institute. And that only applies to Parent PLUS loans, not including consolidated loans.

Parent PLUS Loans are federal student loans given to parents to help their children pay for their education and, like other federal loans, they have a fixed interest rate – albeit at a higher annual percentage rate than subsidized direct loans and not subsidized. Indeed, for the 2019-2020 school year, the PLUS Loan rate was 7.08%.

If you want to reduce your interest costs or get rid of your debt as quickly as possible, you may want to pay off your PLUS loans quickly. If that’s your goal, these five tips for debt relief can help.

1. Choose the right repayment plan

Parents have several repayment plan options, including a standard plan that will result in loan repayment over 10 years or an extended repayment plan that extends repayment over 25 years. With an extended plan, the monthly payments are smaller, but it takes you a lot longer to pay off your debt – and you pay much higher total interest charges.

2. Consider refinancing

Private refinance loans can sometimes offer a lower interest rate than PLUS loans, especially if you have good credit and enough income to pay off what you’ve borrowed. This process means finding a private lender and taking out a loan to pay off existing debts. Most often, these refinance loans come from online lenders, credit unions, or banks.

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Refinancing means giving up options for income-based reimbursement or the cancellation of the loan as well as the forfeiture of other benefits associated with federal loans such as generous forbearance policies. But if you’re not taking advantage of these benefits anyway, refinancing can make a lot of sense.

If you can lower your interest rate when refinancing your loan, it will cost less to repay because a smaller portion of your monthly payment is spent on interest. If your interest rate and payment go down after refinancing, but you continue to make the same amount, your principal balance will be paid off quickly.

You also have the option of refinancing a new loan with a shorter repayment term. Often times you will get the most competitive rate by choosing a short term loan. And even if your monthly payments will be larger, you will be able to pay off your debts much faster.

For example, if you have a loan of $ 10,000 PLUS at 7.08% and you have eight years of repayment left, refinancing a new loan at an interest rate of 4.99% with a term Five-year repayment would increase your monthly payment by about $ 52 per month, but you’d be debt-free three years earlier and save over $ 1,800 in interest.

3. Make additional monthly payments

Even a small extra payment can make a big difference in the time it takes to pay off what you owe. If you have a $ 10,000 loan at 7.08% and you pay an additional $ 100 per month starting with your second payment, you could pay off your debt 5.4 years earlier and save over $ 2,236 in interest charges.

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4. Skip the adjournment period

Parents can defer payment on PLUS loans while the children are in school and for a six month deferral after graduation. But interest keeps accumulating while loans are deferred.

In fact, if you’ve borrowed $ 10,000 at 7.08% and you defer repayment for 12 months, you’ll accumulate $ 708 in unpaid interest that will go on top of your loan balance.

You will end up paying interest on this additional interest, so the repayment will be more expensive. Since your monthly payments will be higher due to your larger balance, it will be more difficult to make additional payments.

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5. Benefit from the discount of the civil service loan

PLUS loans are a type of federal student aid, so parents have the same borrower protections as student borrowers. However, parents do not have access to income-based repayment or forgiveness of public service loans without first consolidating using a Direct consolidation loan.

Consolidation is free and you can consolidate even a single loan through a quick online application. Once you have consolidated, you can pay off your debt using conditional income repayment and you can become eligible for loan remission for qualifying public service work after making 120 payments while working for the government or for a qualifying non-profit organization.