Student Loan Consolidation ? Lower Your Payments

Often times it makes good economic sense to consolidate your all of your student loans upon graduating. Each of the loans that you applied for and received each year or semester of school is considered a separate loan. The average student graduating from a four-year private school leaves college with about ,000 in student loan debt. After you graduate, you will get offers from lenders to consolidate these loans.

Student loan consolidation is big business. A huge profit margin exists for any loan consolidator that can capture you as a client. Virtually all of the risk is assumed by the taxpayers and all of the profit goes to whoever can talk you into letting them consolidate and service your loan. Consolidating your student loans means bundling all of your loans into one big loan with a single lender and a single payment plan. This will almost always lower your total monthly payment. Despite a possible lengthened repayment period, loan consolidation is usually a wise move.

There is practically no way to get out of paying off student loans. The notable exceptions to this rule include joining the Peace Corps, the AmeriCorps and some selective teaching gigs. You cannot declare personal bankruptcy and be relieved of student loan debt. Bankruptcy laws make an exception for student loan debt. It cannot be erased.

Assuming you have decided to pay off the loans, understanding the details of student loans will make the repayment process easier to cope with. For all three major types of federal loans there is a six-month grace period after graduating during which you do not have to begin to repay. The Federal Perkins Loans, the Federal Subsidized Stafford Loans, and the Federal Unsubsidized Stafford Loans all give this initial grace period.

Interest rates are set for each type of student loan once per year. Current federal student loan interest rates for all of the types of student loans are fairly low compared to five or ten years ago. Interest rates you can expect to see when consolidating your student loans are also comparitively quite low historically speaking. Some variation in your interest rate can be expected based upon your credit worthiness and credit rating. One common solution for borrowers with poor credit ratings would be to use a cosigner who has better credit than you.

You should also not be afraid to negotiate with your lending institution for a lower rate. For example, you might offer to have the payment automatically deducted from your bank account or other automatic payment method. If your lender will not make a sincere effort to lower your interest rate, you should be prepared to take your business to the next financial institution down the street. They are in competition for your business. Don’t let the bank make you feel like they are doing you a favor. You are the customer. Make the bank earn your business.

With your student loans consolidated you should see a low enough monthly payment to get through your initial period of employment after school. As your income increases over time you can expect your payments to be less of a burden on your budget with each passing year.

Ethan Steiner – About the Author:

Main Interests: Internet and Tech.  I have a little website on the internet dedicated to helping students and families find financing for higher education.  Stop by and check it out sometime at Money-For-School.org.  Along with the usual federal grants and student loans we include other creative tools sources for college financial assistance.  Other Hobbies:I like to play baseball and hang out with friends.

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/debt-consolidation-articles/student-loan-consolidation-lower-your-payments-4115522.html

Tenn. Community College May Cut Federal Student Loans

Nashville State Community College is weighing the decision to eliminate federal student loans from its financial aid programs.

The school is assessing the number of its students who have defaulted on their federal student loans and believes it may be in a better position to preserve other types of federal financial aid if it exits the student loan program. Schools whose students default at consistently high rates lose eligibility for all federal student aid — not just loans, but also federal grants and work-study funds.

About 25 percent of NSCC’s students currently take on federal college loans as part of their financial aid package. The school’s 2008 default rate on federal education loans was over 13 percent.

This default rate — the current standard calculation used by the U.S. Department of Education — measures how many students have defaulted on their federal college loans within two years of having begun repayment. Schools whose two-year default rate exceeds 25 percent lose access to federal student aid funds.

Under new federal regulations which are set to take effect next year, however, the student loan default rate will be measured over three years, with a new financial-aid eligibility threshold of 30 percent.

Measured over three years, NSCC’s default rate nearly doubles to 25 percent. If the school’s three-year default rate climbs just 5 percent more, NSCC could lose access to all federal student aid, including Pell Grants and work-study funding.

NSCC officials say they’re more interested in preserving federal grants and work-study options for their students and don’t want jeopardize these forms of student aid in order to keep a federal loan option available.

In Tennessee, more than one-fifth of the state’s public community colleges and vocational education schools already don’t participate in the federal student loan program for that very reason.

Tennessee already has one of the highest federal student loan default rates under the Department of Education’s current two-year calculation — hovering just under 9 percent. When the new three-year measure takes effect, most state college officials expect their default rates to rise significantly.

“What are we going to do? We have no control over who’s eligible to receive a [federal] loan, we have no control over the collection process, but we’re going to be held responsible,” NSCC’s president, George Van Allen, told The Tennessean. “Our option is to disengage ourselves from the loan program in order to protect the financial aid programs that benefit the majority of our students.”

The most common federal college loan for undergraduates, the federal Stafford loan, requires neither a credit check nor a co-signer and is awarded to students who meet basic eligibility requirements, such as U.S. citizenship or residency and a minimum courseload.

However, although schools don’t control which students meet federal loan eligibility guidelines, the financial aid office must sign off on any federal education loan by certifying it before those loan funds can be disbursed to a student. In that sense, the school can still control which students receive federal loan funds and how much.

Financial aid officials at NSCC say that one of the problems with offering federal school loans is that the funds can be used for ordinary expenses. Although tuition at NSCC averages just ,500 per semester, students can borrow up to ,500 in federal Stafford loans in their first year of studies.

The extra cash may be used to pay for books, fees, and living expenses, but it adds significantly to the student’s overall level of student loan debt. Counselors at NSCC say they advise students to borrow only what they need for educational expenses, but some students are so cash-starved that they ignore the warnings.

At the same time, the NSCC financial aid office always has the option to certify any Stafford loan or other federal school loan for less than the amount requested by the student.

The nonprofit advocacy group, The Project on Student Debt, estimates that the average Tennessean is carrying ,678 in student loan debt and that 53 percent of the state’s residents have taken out a student loan at some point.

If NSCC moves forward in withdrawing from the federal student loan program, it will join several other community colleges nationwide that have done the same.

In neighboring North Carolina, 34 community colleges have opted out of the federal loan program, leaving more than 40 percent of the state’s community college students without access to federal student loans.

Although the North Carolina legislature passed a bill last year that would have forced the state’s community colleges to participate in the federal student loan program, the state House of Representatives recently passed a GOP-sponsored bill that rolls back the 2010 measure, allowing North Carolina’s community colleges to continue opting out of the federal loan program as they see fit.

Student Loan Consolidations ? Finding a Program That Works for You

Student loan consolidation help is a good solution to students who are in debt because of all of the loans that they needed in order to pay for school.

Student loan consolidation is basically the combining of two or more student loans. The point behind this is to allow the student to pay only one low monthly payment, based on what they can afford. This allows people who are in a bad financial situation to live a little easier.

If you just take a look around you can find hundreds of options for student loan consolidations, as well as other consolidations for other types of debt.

Looking at student loan consolidations, you will find that there are two major types of student loan consolidations. They are the federal student loan consolidation and private student loan consolidations. Though you are able to combine federal loans with private loans it is a bad idea. When you combine the two different types, you lose all of the benefits that you are offered with federal student loans but can’t get from using private loans.

First and foremost, with federal student loan consolidation the interest rates you pay can be tax deductable. That is a good benefit that you would have no chance at getting if you were to consolidate them with private loans, or if all you had were private loans.

Next comes the possibility of being forgiven for certain federal loans when you go to consolidate them. Again, if you were to combine them with private loans, or if all you had were private loans, you would not have a chance at this.

And finally, for some who might need this, there is a possibility for you to defer your payments if you need to go back to school. You again can’t take advantage of this benefit if you have just private student consolidations, nor if you mix private with federal student loans.

If at all possible, you want to use only federal student loans. Remember that when you go to get student loans consolidated, you need to be sure to keep federal loans separate from private loans.

When you decide on a student loan consolidation, you need to pay close attention to the interest rates they charge. If all of your rates are the same, then it will be slightly higher, but you will have no extra fees, and you will have a monthly price set based on what you can afford. If the rates are different then they will calculate an interest rate that will land somewhere between your highest rate and your lowest rate. When they tell you that your interest rate will be lower, it isn’t really true. It will just be lower than your current higher rate.

If you come across a place that asks for an up-front fee then you should be wary. These are scams. That’s not to say that everything that has a fee is a scam, just the ones that ask for the fees in the very beginning.