I have been paying off a student loan for the past 10 years. I started many years ago, but the company stopped taking payments from my bank when they sold the loan and didn’t tell me until many months had passed and the loan was defaulted. When I tried to reestablish payments, I was told I couldn’t because I did not have a large “good faith down payment” to send them, and I was only looking to set up $100/month, which was and is all I can afford.

I then a few years ago finally was able to start paying again after going through many, many people, and was told that I could rehabilitate the loan and get it off my credit when it was paid in full.

I now have about $650 left to pay, and I got a call the other day from the loan people saying that the rules had changed and the government would not let them rehabilitate it when it was paid off.

My questions are these: how will the loan affect my credit when it’s paid off completely but still sitting on my credit report, and how long will it be there?

And what changed in the laws that they are now able to go back on what they told me almost 3 years ago. I’ve been working diligently for many years to fix my credit, and this was something I was looking forward to getting resolved finally.