Student Loan Consolidation Hot Topics

As of July 1, 2008, the interest rate on all NEW subsidized Stafford loans will drop to 6.0%, a reduction of 0.8%. Bear this in mind next year when it’s time to consolidate your student loans!

The final auction of the Treasury Bill has taken place, and the new rates for variable student loans have been determined. Drum roll please…

3.60% - Stafford loans in grace (down from 6.62%)
4.21% - Stafford loans in repayment (down from 7.22%)
5.01% - Parent PLUS loans (down from 8.02%)

What does this mean? If you have federal Stafford or PLUS loans that were disbursed prior to July 1, 2006, your interest rate is going to drop. So if you were thinking about consolidating your student loans, I highly recommend that you wait until after July 1, 2008. You stand to save a lot of money…

Again, these rate decreases will only effect loans that were taken out prior to July 1, 2006. Any Stafford or PLUS loan taken out after July 1, 2006 has a fixed interest rate, and will not be affected.

Effective July 1, 2008…

Variable rate Stafford loan disbursed prior to July 1, 2006, that is IN GRACE (IG) = 3.6%

Variable rate Stafford loan disbursed prior to July 1, 2006, that is IN REPAYMENT (RP) = 4.21%

Variable rate Parent plus loan disbursed prior to July 1, 2006 = 5.01%

* note that any Stafford and PLUS loan that were taken out before July 1, 2006, and has never been consolidated, will have these new rates

* note that with consolidation, these rates are rounded to the nearest 1/8% which would make them:

3.625% Stafford in grace

4.25% Stafford in repayment

5.125% Parent Plus

More interesting findings this week - Student loan borrowers that take advantage of borrower benefit discounts should pay close attention to their repayment schedule to avoid loosing their discounts. Because so many lenders are struggling to stay in business right now, many of them are shortening or removing the late payment grace period. For example, some lenders offer discounts for on-time payments, and previously allowed borrowers to be up to 14 days late before removing the discount. This window is either shrinking or getting completely closed - being only 1 day late in some cases could cause discounts to be removed.

So make sure you stay on top of monthly payments and give yourself a few extra days, or even a week to get a payment delivered. If you have automatic checking account withdrawal setup, be sure to spot check your payments periodically. If you plan on setting up auto payment, note that it usually takes 1-3 billing cycles to get setup, so make your normal payments via check or debit card (over the phone or online) until you can confirm that the auto pay is setup. Also, if you switch banks or checking accounts, make sure and remember to switch your student loan payment(s) as well.

A little extra care and attention could help you save thousands.

If you have Sallie Mae federal student loans, you may want to get in contact with Sallie and make sure that they didn’t report your account delinquent to the credit bureaus. Not late on your payment? Neither were the other 10 million borrowers that Sallie erroneously reported as being delinquent. Some borrowers reported that their credit score dropped 100 points. While Sallie maintains that the mistake only affected borrowers who have graduated payment plans, it may be worth getting in touch with them even if you have a different repayment plan.

Good luck - I imagine their phone lines are going to be pretty busy for the next few weeks.

I can see from the comments on the previous post that there remains a lot of confusion about when to consolidate. I will answer the questions to the best of my knowledge.

Given the current run rate of the Treasury bill, it looks as though variable student loan interest rates will most likely be going down significantly on July 1st. The last auction of the T-bill will be on May 31st, when the new rate is set. Is there a chance that the rate could go up? Sure - there is always a chance. But given the current trend, it seems very very unlikely. But don’t worry - since the rate is set on May 31st, you will still have all of June to start your consolidation in the unlikely event that the rate increases.

Anyone that has federal student loans taken out prior to July 1, 2006 and has not yet consolidated these loans will be effected by this rate change. So I advise anyone who is thinking about consolidating now, to wait until May 31st when the new federal rate is set. The new rate information will be posted on this blog, and also on SudentLoanConsolidator.com.

For everyone that has a blend of variable rate federal loans (taken out before July 1, 2006, subject to the decrease) and fixed rate federal loans, you will be able to combine all of these loans together when you consolidate.

I do not advise consolidating federal and private student loans together. Doing so would remove all of the federal benefits, and set all of the loans to a variable rate, which is adjusted quarterly by either the LIBOR or PRIME rate indexes. Because federal loan rates are likely to decrease, consolidating federal loans with private loans would cause a significant rate increase.

In addition, the upcoming rate change WILL NOT affect anyone consolidating their private student loan debt. The rate change being discussed is for federal student loans only. Private student loan rates are based on either the LIBOR or PRIME rate indexes and the borrower and/or co-borrowers credit.

I understand how this process can seem a bit overwhelming. So if anyone has additional questions, please feel free to comment. I will make sure that questions and comments are answered on a more regular basis. Also, stay tuned to for the latest rate information once it becomes available.

If you are looking to consolidate your Federal loans now..you may want to wait a few months….but only if you have loans from before July 1, 2006. Here’s why…

Stafford loans taken out before July 1, 2006 are variable rate loans (assuming they have never been consolidated)…and these variable rate loans are reset every July 1. This July 1st the rate may be decreasing, in which case you would want to wait to consolidate until this rate change occurs. The rate should be announced sometime in June…so you will know before it happens.

If you just graduated and all of your Stafford loans were borrowed after July 1, 2006, you can consolidate whenever you would like, as your rate will always be 6.8%. This is because the rate changed from a variable rate to a fixed rate on July 1, 2006. All of your loans are already fixed in at 6.8%…consolidating them will not change the rate, but it can lower your monthly payments.

Parent PLUS loans are Federal based loans taken out by a Parent on behalf of a child. Here are some quick facts about the loan before I touch on the consolidation of these loans:

1. These loans are taken out by the parents in their names, and can NEVER be transferred to the students name when they graduate

2. The student has no obligation to repay this loan

3. The payments on these loans start right away… they are not deferred because the child is in school (this is not the case with Stafford loans).

4. A parent plus loan is not a joint loan between 2 parents… even if the parents are married, only one parent applies for the loan and the loan will be under that parent’s name and associated Social Security number.

A typical college student is in school for four years. Let’s assume a parent will be borrowing 4 plus loans in total; one for each school year. The loan is typically applied for in the summer time… and half of it is disbursed for Fall semester, and the 2nd half will be disbursed at the start of spring semester. The loan payments will not begin until the loan is fully disbursed, so spring semester is when the parent will receive their first bill.

The following year, the parent repeats this process, and spring of their child’s Sophomore year they want to consolidate the 2 loans together. I say spring because you cannot consolidate a loan that is not fully disbursed. So to apply for a loan consolidation for your 2 loans..you simply fill out a Consolidation Promissory note with the company of your choice. Your loan payments will then be paid back to the company you chose, instead of your initial lenders for the loans.

Let’s add another child to the mix… many times parents have multiple children in college at the same time. Let’s say Dad and Mom have two children, Ben and Molly. Ben is a freshman at College X and Molly is a Junior at college Z. Dad has borrowed a plus loan for Molly for each year she has been in school. He wants to do the same for Ben. Dad CAN consolidate his PLUS loans together even though they are for 2 different children. However, if mom applied one year, with her Social Security Number, her PLUS loans cannot be combined with Dad’s PLUS loans. So keep that in mind when borrowing - it should be the same parent every year, unless you have no plans to consolidate.

One last fact about the PLUS loan is that its forgiven if: the parent that borrowed it becomes deceased OR the child that it was taken out for becomes deceased. Post any questions you may have about this loan.

If you’ve recently tried to consolidate your federal student loans, you may have found it difficult to locate a company willing to help. Some of the biggest lenders in the market are temporarily not offering federal loan consolidation. So what does that mean for you?

Before we discuss your options, lets first look at why so many lenders have stopped offering consolidation. Two different issues are causing the consolidation pause, legislation and credit markets.

Back on October 1, 2007, legislation was passed which contained provisions aimed to shrink the profit margin lenders were getting on federal consolidation loans. The smaller margin allowed for much less profit with zero room for lenders to offer discounts and borrower benefits. It’s important to understand, prior to the October 1st legislation, lenders were taking portions of their own profits and returning it to their borrowers in the form of rebates, interest rate discounts and cash back. Granted, the borrower benefits were a great marketing tool and attracted droves of borrowers to specific programs - but they still helped the borrower save money. Although these changes had a negative impact on many FFELP lenders, the legislation did contain great provisions that would lower interest rates on federal loans over the next several years.

Next we have the credit market crunch - an indirect result of the sub-prime collapse. In order for a lender to consolidate a borrowers federal student loans, that lender has to pay-off the borrowers previous lenders. This requires that the lender have capital available. Now, there are a number of different ways that a lender can do this, (which we won’t get into during this blog) the most common is securing a line of credit with a bank or outside funding source. The outside funding source provides the line of credit with the notion that the lender will be able to package up a bunch of federal consolidation loans and sell them to other investors (securitization). At which point the lender will replenish their line of credit, and be able to write more consolidation loans. For many lenders out there right now, they are not able to secure a funding source, and therefore not able to write consolidation loans. From an investment standpoint, there is a feeling that federal consolidation loans are no longer valuable. I said feeling, because I don’t believe this to be completely true or do I think it will stay this way for too long.

So, the smaller profit margins, coupled with the shaky credit markets have caused a ‘pause’ in the federal consolidation market. And yes, it is a bit more complicated than what I just described, but you get the basic idea of what’s going on.

Now, you need to consolidate your federal loans, but you have no place to go? The Department of Education is still helping borrowers consolidate their federal loans. However, I would wait until after July 1, 2008. For those of you who still have variable rate Stafford and PLUS loans (taken out prior to July 1, 2006), it looks like your interest rate MAY be going down. Not a definite - just a maybe.

Just to point out, the above changes and the federal consolidation pause have not and will not affect private student loan consolidation.

I will be posting more on this topic in the coming weeks - please send along all your questions and comments.

Private student loan bankruptcy protection denied

In the Higher Education Act Reauthorization (HR 4137) currently moving through Congress, an amendment by Representative Davis of Illinois would have extended some bankruptcy protection to students holding private student loans. Unfortunately for students, the amendment was voted down after strong opposition from banks and financial institutions.

The argument against the bankruptcy protection amendment was that its inclusion would ultimately make private student loans more expensive as lenders would need to increase rates and fees to cover loans that were in default and discharged in bankruptcy.

The Financial Aid Podcast has also done an analysis piece on this legislation.

The short version? For now, private student loan consolidation remains the best avenue for making private student loans more affordable.