Student Loan Help!!!!

Avatar for aerandel
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Student Loan Help!!!!
4
Tue, 02-28-2006 - 5:13pm

Hey everyone. I am really just going nuts over my student loan situation. I have about 20K in federal loans that I consolidated a few months ago before the rate jump, so they are sitting at 3.25% and I'm thrilled with that. My private loans though look like this:

Current principal:
4,240--9.25% interst
6,180--8.5% interest
9,540--12.25% interest

I dont' know what to do about the big loan with the 12 1/4 interest. I called some places to ask about private loan consolidation but I was quoted at an interest rate of 11.25. First of all, this doesn't help much with that big loan, and second of all, that puts my other two loans which are not bad at a higher interest rate! What should I do? Should I just leave it the way it is and work on paying that loan off as fast as possible? I can't pay through a CC so a balance transfer to a CC is not an option, although I thought about it. I'm not sure if there are any other options for me to get that interest rate down!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Aerandel

                          

             

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-25-2006
Tue, 02-28-2006 - 6:10pm

aerandel,
I feel your pain. My private loan is HUGE and I don't have any options around the interest rate either. I definitely would not consolidate if it means raising the interest rates on those other loans. The only suggestion I have besides a CC BT is exploring a signature loan at a credit union. I don't know if you are a member but maybe you are eligible for one if not. I imagine you could beat the interest rate and lock in a fixed rate if you qualified. The only thing is you would lose any deferment/forbearance options with that so I wouldn't roll them all in...just the high rate one. Barring that, I would just make this your snowflake priority and start pounding away at it as fast as possible. It's still a lot lower rate than a lot of the cc interest folks are paying and you'll likely be able to deduct a big chunk of the interest.

Oh, one other suggestion. See what the absolute lowest payment you can negotiate on the federal loan is and pay the difference to these higher interest loans. Fed loans have lots of income related and balloon payment sorts of options out there so call your servicing company and see if you can lower that payment until you get these privates handled.

Peg

Avatar for aerandel
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 03-01-2006 - 11:14am
I'm hoping for some more responses to this one so I'm just posting to bump back up to the top. Thanks guys! *bump*

                          

             

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 03-01-2006 - 12:43pm

I agree with the previous poster on making this your target debt and just pounding away as fast as you can. I also agree on seeing if you can lower the federal loan payments-I know I called and asked and they were lower for 2 years.

Taleyna

Avatar for londonrose2001
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-09-2003
Wed, 03-01-2006 - 1:15pm
You said you can't pay with a credit card, but do you get offers of lower interest rates through your CCs, like balance transfer checks? If so, you could write the check to yourself and put it in the bank, and pay that way if you had a 3.99 life of balance offer or something like that. 12% seems so high! I'm sure there are pros and cons to doing that too - for instance, I know consumer debt is worse for your credit score than student loan debt.