cM3go

I have 2 student loans

1 is straight from the gov't about 17 grand
other is Fed Perkins loan through the school about 7 grand

I want to consolidate these and lock in a loan student loan interest rate
Anyone know how to do this? who to go with? I know the gov't offers some stuff, but I dont know how to go about it or where to start

vanz

I go through Student Loan Finance Corporation, www.slfc.com. I got dumped onto them from USBank. I guess they handle the student loans.

DJDZ

You can also try collegiate funding services.

http://www.cfsloans.com/en

Jinen

www.financialaid.com

i think that site gives like 1.675% if you have loans outstanding more than 10k...give them a call and see what happens...

or you can go to the government website

www.dlssonline.com

I am going through dlssonline.com since it's straight from the government and they have the lowest interest rate around...i believe it's around 2.25% or so...and i re-consolidated my loan for a longer term...call them up and see what they say...

Smitty

be smart.... school loans have their benefits and their downsides...

If you consolidate you WILL BE locked into that interest rate (NO one ever told me that, so I got locked into 8.25% many years ago)... and you will not be able to consolidate again UNLESS you go back to school, defer your loans and take out more loans..

at the time I was paying close to 1500 in interest a year... of course I used it all as a write off on my taxes... but I got smart and started splitting it up to Interest FREE credit cards....
Now I am not saying this is good for you.. because with school loans you only make a minimal payment... You have to do the math and see what it is costing you per day in interest.

So with the credit card trick.. i found the cards that had 18 month interest free... and every time I made a payment.. it reduced the amount.. when i got to the 15th month.. i applied for a new card and tranferred the remaining amount to a new interest free on balance transfer card...(now some of them have a 75 dollar fee... but I much rather pay 75 dollars for the transfer compared to paying 1500+ dollars a year in interest if I stayed with school loan bearer)

i never miss payments because I set everything up through my online banking and it pays my bill every month....

So ask yourself.. do you want to pay them back aggressively or do you want to take your sweet ass time and pay them back 10-15 years from now...

the choice is yours.

Slimey

And yet another link: www.salliemae.com

Smitty has some good advice. A consolidated loan is really just a personal loan -- you lose any advantages (deferment, etc) that you may have had when you refinance, and you get locked into a rate.

I refinanced at 8%, which sounds bad, but I was happy about. I had several SLS loans that were purchased in the 14% realm. Yea, big '80s.

Also, if you make more then like $40K/year taxable income (I don't remember the exact number), you cannot deduct student loan interest at tax time.