Student Loan Consolidation May Get you Up to 20 More Years to Pay Off your Student Loans
If you’re a former student or a college parent with any outstanding federal student loans, you may be able to get up to 20 more years to repay just by consolidating your eligible federal parent or student loans. With that longer repayment term, since you have more time to repay, the amount you have to pay each month will typically go down. You may be able to cut your monthly student loan payments by up to 42% — just by consolidating!
Cut Your Payments on Your Student Loans by up to 42%
Here’s an example of how you can lower your monthly student loan payments when you consolidate your federal college loans and take advantage of a longer repayment term: Estimated monthly payments on a $75,000 student loan consolidation fixed at 7.25% and repaid over an extended term of 30 years are $512, versus estimated monthly payments of $879 on a $75,000 Federal Stafford Loan issued at 7.22% and repaid over 10 years — that’s a 41.8% reduction in monthly payment amount. (Your actual payment reduction may vary and will depend on the terms of the parent or student loans you’re consolidating.)
Get More Time to Repay Your Student Loans
Federal PLUS parent loans and Stafford student loans are issued with standard repayment terms of 10 years. You may be able to get up to 30 years to repay these federal parent and student loans when you consolidate them into a student loan consolidation.
How long you get to repay will depend on the total outstanding balance of your education debt: If your outstanding education debt totals $20,000 – $39,999, you’ll have 20 years to pay back your student loan consolidation.? If your outstanding education debt totals $40,000 – $59,999, you’ll have 25 years. If you have $60,000 or more in education debt when you consolidate your federal student loans, you’ll have 30 years to pay back your Federal student loan consolidation.
No Fees. No Credit Checks. No Prepayment Penalties.
Even though you can get more time to repay your federal parent and student loans by consolidating, there are no prepayment penalties on a Federal Consolidation Loan, so you won’t be assessed any additional fees for paying more than the minimum each month or for paying off your student loan consolidation early, should you choose to.
There are also no application fees, no processing fees, and no credit checks when you consolidate through the federal student loan consolidation program.
Replace Your Variable-Rate Student Loans With a Fixed-Rate Consolidation Loan
If you took out your Federal PLUS Loans or Stafford Loans prior to July 1, 2006, those loans are subject to variable interest rates that will adjust every year. So when interest rates rise, your monthly student loan payments may also go up. But you can put an end to rate increases and rising payments when you consolidate your parent or student loans.
The federal student loan consolidation program gives you the security of a fixed interest rate. By consolidating your federal
student loans, you’ll replace your variable-rate college loans with a fixed-rate consolidation loan, so you won’t have to worry about interest rates rising and leaving you guessing about your monthly payment amount.
Make Just One Payment for All Your Federal Student Loans
If you have multiple student loans in repayment and you’re dealing with the hassle of multiple bills, multiple due dates, and multiple monthly payments to multiple lenders, a Federal Consolidation Loan could help make your student loan repayment easier to manage.
With the federal student loan consolidation program, you can bundle all your eligible federal parent or student loans into one single consolidation loan with just one monthly bill, one lender, and one monthly payment that’s fixed for the life of your consolidation loan.
Consolidate Your Private Student Loans
If you have private student loans in addition to your federal student loans, you won’t be able to consolidate your private student loans under the federal student loan consolidation program. But you may be able to consolidate your private student loans separately with a Private Consolidation Loan, which offers the same convenience of a single consolidated loan for your private student loans.
By: Jeff Mictabor
Student Loans – Consolidation Can Change Your Life, Literally!
Getting through college is not that cheap and what usually happens is that students pile up debts. Whilst student loans have relatively low interest rates, especially when compared to other loans, when you have lots of them, they really turn into a headache.
And all that stressing about how to pay off your student loans can really affect a student’s concentration in his or her studies – the last thing they want.
Fortunately, there are now student loan consolidation programs available. By consolidation, it means combining all your student loans into one loan.
When you consolidate, you find one lender that would let you borrow an amount good enough to pay all your balances from other lenders. With this, you will only have one lender to worry about and one monthly payment obligation.
This is particularly important when you get to the end of your education and it’s time to tie up all those loans together into one better value package. There are plenty of lenders out there perfectly set to help you with this.
Student Loan Consolidation Considerations
Of course, it is best to look for the best student consolidation program. To do this, you must know all your options, do plenty of research, and stock up on your knowledge about the whole process so that you can make an intelligent choice.
Federal loans are usually the one that you can easily consolidate. But do not worry if your student loan is private, because there are also many lenders out there who offer private student loan consolidation.
Take note that even though interest rates may rise a bit when you consolidate your student loans, there may be no costs involved when you consolidate.
If a lender is asking you for a fee for the consolidation aside from the monthly payment obligation plus interest you have to pay, then you are probably need to ask questions of them and try to negotiate that out of the equation, or at least onto the end of the loan amount.
Always remember that there is really no need for an upfront fee for student loan debt consolidation.
As for the interest rates, here are some facts to take note of. Student loan consolidation rates are computed as the overall weighted average. This means that all the interest of the loans you are going to consolidate will be computed and the average of that will become the consolidation interest rate.
Now what about the qualifications involved of student loan consolidation? A student can consolidate as well as the parents of a student. It’s just that those parents will have to consolidate the student loans they borrowed separately from the loans borrowed by their child.
Take note also that students who are married usually cannot consolidate together their student loans now, unlike before. Students can only avail of consolidated student loan programs during their loans’ grace period (often the first six months after graduating), or subsequent to their loans’ entry to the repayment stage.
Other Student Loan Considerations
All student loan consolidation, private or Federal, can be done with any lender in the market. It is already the student or the parents’ discretion to choose the right lender for them. If the numerous loans you have acquired are from a single lender only, consolidation can still be done with still any lender.
Student loan reconsolidation can also be done (yep, you can do it again, but watch for any early exit penalties!). There are, however, some conditions to this.
The conditions include that when reconsolidating, other loans will be included with the consolidated loan. Another thing is that reconsolidation can only be done once and once only.
Bottom line is that student loan refinance through consolidation can also be a good option for you to lessen your loan burden at a vital time in your career and life.
By: Martin Haworth
Consolidating Student Loans: How to Consolidate Safely and Easily
Student consolidation loans are the easiest and best way to get relief from the burden of accumulating debts especially among students who are not dependent on the money sent by their parents.
Students consider taking a loan as the easiest way to get relief from the debt that they have taken to clear their college dues and face other challenges.
With the constant rise in the prices of college education in conjunction with other necessary expenses, it has become extreme difficult to survive without ample money in hand. This is the main reason for students to depend on more than one loan to fulfill their requirements.
The problem appears when it comes to pay off all the loans with other bills and interest charges levied on these loans. This is really difficult. However, if not paid on time, the financial institutions may take strict actions against students. This may also ruin their future.
This is the point where a student needs help. Here comes the role play of a student consolidation loan. This loan would be of much help to students when it comes to pay off all the debts.
A consolidation loan refers to combining or consolidating all the student loans in to a single loan. With this scheme, you can enjoy a lot of benefits.
First and foremost, this process will help you via making you deal with a single payment on a monthly basis. Another benefit is that you can reduce the rate of interest significantly when pay off the bills and other debts. This loan can also be referred to as an instrument that must be seriously taken in to consideration in case; you want to simplify the complicated process of handling the debt.
Here are some tips on consolidating your student’s loan in a safe and easy way. These tips will help you a lot:
a) Keep yourself away from fraudulent companies. Yes, with a lot of competition in this field, these days you may come across certain fraudulent companies. These companies may squeeze a lot of money out of you without providing you any benefits.
b) Make a thorough research prior to deciding on a particular company providing the facility of students loan consolidation. Try to meet a lot of vendors and hit certain websites and analyze what they sell and how authentic these companies are.
c) Make sure that your credit record is clear prior to going for a loan consolidation scheme.
d) If a vendor is trying to rush you in to signing a contract, stop making a deal immediately.
e) Check the credentials of the company via contracting the Best Business Bureau. Make sure that you find out if there has been any complaint reported against these companies in the past.
f) Ask for some special discounts and schemes from the company.
g) You should try to consolidate your loan within the grace period provided. This way, you can easily save almost half of the interest rate as compared to the current repayment rate.
Following the tips mentioned above will let you enjoy the best benefits of student loan consolidation.
By: Bertil Hjert