Student Loans

[Duckus]

I graduated in May with about $25,000 in loans. $17,000 or so in Federal Subsidized Stanford Loans and another $8,000 in Federal Perkins Loans. The Perkins Loans have a great government interest rate so I am not planning on doing anything with those loans.

My Stanford Loans have a 7.14% interest rate and are scheduled to be paid off over the next 10 years.

I get maybe 3 pieces of mail A DAY asking me to consolidate but when I check out the deals I do not find anything worth doing. Most of them will lock it in right around 7% and spread it over 15 years instead of 10. It would make my monthly payment less, but my interest rate is not going way down and I would be paying on the loans for 5 more years.

It would be a good deal if the interest rates were to go up, because I would be locking it in at the current rate. That brings me to another question. What are good indicators of what the interest rate will do? Any sure signs that the interest rates will rise or fall? That way at least I can keep an eye on it and if it looks like it will go up a notch I will lock it in at this rate.

Anyhow, does anyone have a good website or a service they have used in the past for student loans?

[Coach Williams]

back when I worked for my dad this was my job so I still have somethin' in the tank....

I posted 2 or 3 threads in the past about FSL's.

What did ya wanna know?

P.S.~ 25k is nothin'........

[IONTOP]

P.S.~ 25k is nothin'........

Serously, I'm taking out 22k this year alone...

[Duckus]

Serously, I'm taking out 22k this year alone...

The key is to be poor enough for grants not loans, then the government pays for most of the education :D Grants paid for 75% of it the loans paid for the rest.

[IONTOP]

Yeah, blame that one on the parental units... All I need to do is turn 24 (I think) and then I can qualify for financial aid on my own...

[Buddha]

Unless you need to lower your monthly payments because of your current income, don't refinance. Just pay it off at the 10 year rate. Given your age, I suspect keeping that 10 year plan and the higher monthly payments will help discourage you from adding higher debt (e.g., expensive car payments).

And I also agree with the other replies -- I started out in the "real world" with over $100K in school debt. I consolidated to go on a much longer repayment schedule with lower payments, but after 8 years of minimal payments I still owe about $65K.

[jbooma]

pay as much as you can, if you can pay double the normal payment then i would do it, just so you can pay it faster and in the end pay less overall

for those thinking about spending a lot of money for undergrad think long and hard about it, honestly it doesn't matter where you get your degree, just that you get one, where it is important is where you go to grad school

then i would recommend paying for school as well getting your work to pay for most of it

[Coach Williams]

I will add one point of advice. If your vaiable rate drops lower than 4 or 5 % and you can lock it into a fixed rate do it and make sure the program you sign with has no pre payment penalty.

[dockeryfan]

pay as much as you can, if you can pay double the normal payment then i would do it, just so you can pay it faster and in the end pay less overall

It depends. I still have about 70K in loans fixed at 3.75%. That's only about 2600/year in interest. At that rate, you can use the money other ways.

[Duckus]

It depends. I still have about 70K in loans fixed at 3.75%. That's only about 2600/year in interest. At that rate, you can use the money other ways.

Where did you get a rate so low?

[jbooma]

It depends. I still have about 70K in loans fixed at 3.75%. That's only about 2600/year in interest. At that rate, you can use the money other ways.

true, but depending on what you want to do it helps regarding credit and other investments

nice rate though :applause:

[SkinsHokieFan]

Mine is at 2.6 :)

Right now I pay 48 bucks a month, but it will balloon up a bit in 2 years. The reasoning being that I will in theory have a better paying job (which is true) and can afford higher payments later on

And I only have 17k in loans

[Thirtyfive2seven]

I took out a loan with Sallie Mae and got raped because of bad credit. My payments are close to 330.00/mo. It's just painful.

[AsburySkinsFan]

P.S.~ 25k is nothin'........
Yep, you don't even want to know what I'm gonna have in student loans when I'm done.

Let's just say that I could have paid for this...
http://images.autotrader.com/pictures/VEHICLE/2005/Chevrolet/100375991/031021-E.jpg

[Prosperity]

Mine is at 2.6 :)

Right now I pay 48 bucks a month, but it will balloon up a bit in 2 years. The reasoning being that I will in theory have a better paying job (which is true) and can afford higher payments later on

And I only have 17k in loans

How did you do that? I am probably going to have 20-25k in loans. and I am probably going to go to some sort of professional/graduate school so I would want to pay very little for the first few years until I can actually make money.

[SkinsHokieFan]

How did you do that? I am probably going to have 20-25k in loans. and I am probably going to go to some sort of professional/graduate school so I would want to pay very little for the first few years until I can actually make money.


1) Virginia Tech was very cheap to go to while I was there

2) Pell Grants galore

3) I was ready to lock in that low low interest rate in 2004 as soon as I graduated

[Coach Williams]

unfortunately for newer students the federal governent MAY be ridding us of fixing a rate even after consolidation...........

I knew a person with 125K @ variable who refused to lock his rate when it first fell below 3.......too bad......

[Air Force Cane]

had about 38K in loans after law school in 1997.

down to about 24K now.

1. it is STAFFORD and not Stanford

2. how did you get a 10 year payoff plan? most are 30 years for Federal subsidized/unsubsidized.

the problem is that AFTER you consolidate the first time- you can never consolidate again. So when I did mine a few years ago, it was around 5.5% and then it dropped to 3.9% last summer but I was SOL.. so keep that in mind!!

the unsubsidized private loans are the worst. every few months the rate has gone up from around 4.5 to over 7.3 right now :mad:

[Mr. S]

I don't have much of a loan cause my parents could afford it while I was in school, and I pretty much paid for my apartment/books/incidentals the past two years from the job I worked the previous summers (man I like how Harrisonburg is cheap, as well as ebay). Anyways, I think my rate is around a 5.7%, about 5k worth of loans, with Sallie Mae. I'm throwing in a 500$ payment every month since I don't have any other expenses being at home, otherwise it's 55$ per month. I want to wipe it out before I go to law school, as I know that's a good 100k loan coming in.

[dks1240]

for those thinking about spending a lot of money for undergrad think long and hard about it, honestly it doesn't matter where you get your degree, just that you get one, where it is important is where you go to grad school

then i would recommend paying for school as well getting your work to pay for most of it

:applause:
Flawless advice.

So many of my friends went to overpriced out of state schools and so many are going to be in debt until they are 50. Oh how I love not having undergrad loans :) ...now im just piling on some grad school loans :doh: