Let’s add some detail to the benefits available to graduates, parents or students who decide to consolidate the loans that have built up over the years of study.
The Consolidation of Student Loans Brings Reduced Payments
When a student gets all his or her loans under the same Social Security number, then the government will agree to consolidate those student loans. The student’s individual loans are paid off, giving the student one large loan.
Moreover, when the government takes steps to consolidate student loans, it also takes two other important steps: It extends the loan and it lowers the loan rate.
There is not set way by which a loan provider can bring down the rate on a consolidated loan. A reputable loan provider carefully examines all the possible ways that a student’s rate might be made lower.
The loan provider then establishes that low rate as the rate for a consolidated and extended loan.
The government’s willingness to both extend the loan and to lower the rate can save students considerable money. Although the payment schedule has been extended, the person with the consolidated loan can feel free to pay the loan off ahead of schedule.
In other words, there is no prepayment penalty levied on those who make an early pay-off after choosing to consolidate student loans.
Two More Reasons to Consolidate Student Loans
It was mentioned above that the rate on a consolidated loan is lower than the rate on each of the original loans. Besides being lower, that rate is also fixed. The rate on a Stafford or Perkins Loan is variable. The rate on a consolidated loan does not change during the course of the loan.
A student with a consolidated loan does not need to spend time keeping track of the payment schedule for two, three or more loans. That student loan recipient can just make a single monthly payment. Often the student elects to make that single payment through an automatic debit.
That can decrease the loan rate by another 0.25%.
Still Other Reasons to Consolidate Student Loans
Gradate students who consolidate student loans can learn then about fellowships and graduate school loans. Parents who consolidate their loans can search for free money or private loans. Those benefits come on top of the loan’s lower interest rate.
When you consolidate student loans, you provide yourself with a chance to improve your credit score. No graduate wants to face credit problems that have been caused by his or her need to take out loans in order to cover college expenses.
In light of all the above benefits, students should ask this question:
Who Can Qualify for the Program to Consolidate Student Loans?
Before allowing a student to consolidate student loans, the government looks to see if the student or graduate owes $10,500 or more. The government also checks to see if the loan recipient has any loans in default.
By: Martin Haworth
Posts Tagged ‘Consolidated Loan’
Consolidating Your Student Loans
January 22nd, 2010
Debt from student loans can be crushing to recent college graduates and get in the way of achieving other life goals. Fortunately, there is a way to reduce the strain on your finances and even improve your credit score. Many graduates are turning to loan consolidating to help manage their loan repayments. The procedure and requirements differ from federal and private loans.
Consolidating Federal Loans
Stafford loans and Federal Perkins loans are examples of federal loans. These loans are given to you by the government and may or may have accrued interest while you were attending school. Consolidating your federal student loans provides a fixed-rate refinancing program that takes all of your existing federal loans and combines them into one new loan. Your monthly student loan repayment could be cut by as much as 50% as well as reduce your interest rate by .6% if you consolidate during your grace period. One monthly payment will help you simplify your finances.
Payment relief
By creating one consolidated loan you can receive payment relief, a lengthening of your repayment term from the standard 10 years to up to 30 years. This frees up your disposable income to spend on other expenses like car payments, housing, and work-related necessities. There are no penalties for overpayment, so when the funds become available you can make larger payments and minimize your repayment term.
Consolidating Private loans
Like federal loans, consolidating private loans means lumping everything into one new loan. To consolidate your private loans from undergraduate school you will have to apply with a qualified co-signer in order to be approved. If you have a graduate degree you do not have to apply with a co-signer.
Some of the benefits include reduced interest rates, rate reductions, deferment, and no prepayment penalties. Loan holders may lower your interest rates if your credit has improved. Applying with a co-signer who has good credit could help you get a lower APR loan. There is a grace period for medical/dental residents as well as military personnel if their private student loans are consolidated. As with federal student loan consolidation, you can also have your repayment period extended allowing you to pay the lowest monthly payment possible.
By: Joseph Devine
Consolidate Student Loans – Smart Tips
January 17th, 2010
Consolidating student loans is a great opportunity to lower your monthly payments and free up some cash each month. Here are some smart tips we have for you on the process of consolidating student loans:
•If you are in your grace period, it is the best time to consolidate your student loans. You are in the grace period if you have finished school but you are not yet in the repayment period, which usually begins 6 months after your graduation. If you consolidate your student loans during your grace period you can usually qualify for a lower interest rate from the lender.
•The federal government passed a recent law that lets borrowers consolidate their student loans with any eligible FFELP (Federal Family Education Loan Program) lender. This means that you have more lenders to choose from than you did in the past.
•The federal government has set the interest rate on consolidation of federal school loans, and this is part of federal law, so lenders are legally bound and cannot charge you a higher interest rate for any reason. It’s always best for you to get the lowest interest rate you can from the lender that you choose, but interest rates on consolidating student loans that were backed by the federal government are fixed for the life of the loan and can’t be higher than 8.25%. That doesn’t mean that a lender can’t charge you less interest, so it still pays to shop around for the best rate.
•If you have both federal and private student loans, don’t let your lender put them together into one consolidated loan. If you do, you will lose the federal benefits that are part of your federal loans. For instance, the cap on interest charged is at 8.25% now for federal student loans, and you would lose this cap if you consolidated both federal and private loans into the same loan. Deferment and forbearance are options that you can use with federal student loans if you fall upon bad economic times like losing your job to layoff or termination, becoming disabled and unable to work, etc. These are important benefits that you would be wise not to lose. Deferment is when the government allows you to postpone payment of the principal on the loan for a period of time. Depending on the type of loan you have, you may or may not need to repay the interest during deferment. Forbearance is when the government allows you to stop your payments for a period of time, but you still need to pay the interest payments. In both deferment and forbearance, there may be ways for you to add the interest payments onto the back of your loan so that you pay nothing during the period of deferment or forbearance.
•The Higher Education Act was passed for the protection of students taking out loans for educational expenses. It specifically mandates that federal student loan consolidations have to have fixed interest rates, no processing fees or loan fees of any kind, no credit checks for the borrower, no prepayment penalties if the borrower pays off the loan early, and a lower interest rate if the loan is consolidated during the grace period.
By: Bruce D Hunter