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10 Steps to Pay off your Student Loans as a Jamaican


Are you a recent University graduate? Did you graduate from College? Did you take Student loans? Are you worried about repayment? Well look no further, you are in the right place.

I was asking myself the same questions. I am here to guide you on the steps I took to pay off my Student loan debt. I graduated from college eight years ago and I can boldly state that I successfully paid off my Student Loan debt in 2017. 😅

How did I do it? Well, let's just say it was not a walk in the park. It took 5 years worth of commitment, discipline, determination, sacrifice, and persistence. 

Here are the 10 steps which I am going to share with you which helped me along my 5-year journey to breakthrough. 

  1. Start making repayments during the 6 months grace period before receiving scheduled loan repayment notice. After I left University in July, I didn't land my dream job as I would have hoped. I started out as a Call Center Agent and I started making payments of $2000 JMD & $5,000 JMD per month for 6 months. By the time I received my repayment notice I had already paid approximately $40,000 JMD. Although this wasn't a lot, it helped to lower my principal and the repayment time frame I had to pay it. Instead of 10 years, it was changed to 7 years. 🙆

  2. Calculate how much you owe and the interest rate that you will be repaying. The interest rate was 9.5 % on the principal. I borrowed approximately $600,000 JMD in total for the 3 years that I studied. In the end, I repaid approximately $1, 200,000 JMD. 👀 Yes, that's correct.

  3. Decide on a fixed amount that you want to repay each month and remain consistent. 

  4. Never miss a payment or if you do, let it be only for a short period of time. If you continue to miss payments then you will be in arrears. You will have to clear the arrears first and this would only be setting you back on your goal. 

  5. Keep track of your payment receipts or online payment transactions as proof of payment. We are all humans and we make mistakes. There are numerous times in the past when the Loan Servicing Officer did not receive my payment on a specific date and I had to email the transaction. 

  6. Constantly communicate with your Loan Servicing Officer to ensure that they have received your payment. You can ask for a loan statement and you can see a breakdown of all your payments and how it is broken down. 

  7. Create a budget including your savings and expenses. If you have a reserve of money left you can pay more on your Student loan for the month. The Principal will keep on decreasing and you will be out of debt in no time. 

  8. Find a Part time job or side hustle- This will allow you generate more income which you can use to pay on your Student loan. I received gigs as a Part time Editor which greatly assisted me. Instead of paying $20,000 JMD per month, I would sometimes pay $30,000 or sometimes $40,000 JMD. 

  9. Try to pay more than the 'minimum' payments that they instructed. You will avoid paying more interest in the long run and avoid taking more years to repay. 

  10. Live within your means and only buy necessities. Simply put, if you don't need something then don't buy it. Resist the urge to do impulsive shopping. Resist the temptation to buy the new clothes, the new shoes but make the sacrifice by seeing the long term benefits. 


I hope these steps were beneficial. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to leave your comments.


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