Student Loan Consolidation Hot Topics

I was speaking in the office break room with our director of student loan consolidation, Jon Rudy, about how we’re marketing our federal and private student loan consolidation products. We’re in agreement, as we frequently are, that student loan consolidation has a vital role in the education finance process.

Where I think a lot of student loan companies get hung up is on the idea of saving money for students. Student loan consolidation does not save you money over the long term if you only make the minimum payment, because at the bare minimum payment, you’ll be paying off your loan longer.

Think of it this way. If you rent an apartment, over a period of time, you’ll pay a certain amount for rent. If you rent that apartment longer, it costs you more money. If you rent a smaller apartment for longer, it will still probably cost you more money than a larger apartment for less time.

A loan is nothing more than a money rental. You’re renting money from a lender, and the interest you pay is the rent.

What student loan consolidation does is agree to reduce your rent, trading off with renting the money for a longer period of time, if you make the minimum payment.

Our perspective as a company is that students just out of school need to take a few years to get on their feet in their careers and personal finances. During that time period, a reduced monthly payment is just the thing they need. After a few years, when presumably they’re making good use of their education and degree, we strongly recommend that students step up and make more than the minimum payment, ideally making a payment that’s a little larger than the original, unconsolidated loan payment.

Because there are no early repayment penalties, they can effectively get on their feet financially and then be done with the loan in the same amount of time as if they hadn’t consolidated.

Does student loan consolidation save you money? Not necessarily. Does it reduce your monthly payment? Yes, absolutely. But more than anything else, student loan consolidation helps to buy you some time in the first years after school.

Doesn’t it seem like we were just talking about this? I swear the years go by faster and faster now…

Anyway, for all you students and recent grads out there, the holiday season can be a wallet draining time. In the spirit of saving money, Student Loan Network has pulled together a crafty list of holiday money saving tips and ideas, designed to stretch your hard earned cash a little further this year.

Have any holiday shopping tips or ideas of your own? Feel free to comment back and I will post your ideas (with your permission of course) so others can gain from your knowledge.

That’s right - you can’t hide from it anymore. If you graduated this past spring, the chances are your grace period is over and you have to start paying back your student loans. This is not the end of the world for you, just the beginning of a long relationship with your loan servicer. (Technically, the relationship started 4 years ago…but who’s counting)

You have some options. First and foremost, examine your monthly budget, and include your new student loan payments. If you can afford to make the payments, don’t defer or put your loans into forbearance just to save money. When you put your loans into forbearance or deferment, interest will continue to collect on your none-subsidized federal loans, which gets capitalized once you go back into repayment. This basically means that your total payback amount will increase. Not to mention, deferment and forbearance are intended to be used during financial hardships. If you use them up now when you can afford to pay, you won’t have them in the future when you may actually need them.

Still, you can afford the monthly payments, but now you have much less cash lying around. Consider consolidation - you can cut your monthly payment nearly in half. And, there is no penalty for extra or early repayment. So, when you claw your way to the top of the corporate ladder, and land that high paying fluff job, you can payback your remaining loan balance without being penalized.

Finally, don’t forget to consolidate your private student loans. They’re probably going into repayment right about now as well. And if you have a lot of private student loans like me, then consolidating those will also help that monthly budget stay fit. Just like federal consolidation, private consolidation will combine all of your private student debt and lower your monthly payment, without any penalties for extra or early repayment.