Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools- UPDATE ON PG 2: I CALLED THEM!

So everyone told me how "worth it" my education would be...yeah whatever

The only schools that were local that had my major and still allowed me to work was a private school.

Student loans covered 90% of my masters degree, and half of my undergrad degree. So yeah...totally screwed.

I'm almost positive that I am not the only one in this prediciment. Can anyone offer advice before I have a nervous breakdown? If I never own a home or have children I should be ok, but that's not really the life I would like to lead.

I went online to one of those student loan calculators and it told me that my salary would have to be double what it is to live above poverty AND pay my student loans...

Unfortunately, I, believe it or not, am the bread winner, so help from DH will not happen at this time. I am actually nauseous about this...please, if someone has some wisdom they would like to share I'd appreciate it greatly.

TIA

Message edited 7/16/2008 1:03:31 PM.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

have you consolidated them all together? When I did this I was also allowed to choose from several options on how long to take to pay them off - 10 years, 15, etc.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

I'm nervous about doing this to be honest out of fear of how large of a payment they will expect me to make. Would it really help? My undergrad is w/ sallie mae, while grad school (the large part) is w/ direct loan. If I consolidate and go on a 15 year plan, and then make some extra payments when possible (i.e. tax returns, etc), do you think that would help? What's the longest time you can repay a loan? Not that I want to stretch it out for longer than needed, but I want to arrange it so the payments are comfortable and we can have children and a modest home.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

My monthly loan payment before consolidation was $950. My monthly payment after consolidation was $275.

You should look into it. Call Sallie Mae and get the actual figures from them.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

This may not be the best advice but this is what I have done:

*Consolidated
**During Financial Difficulties I received a forbearance, some can get a deferrment.
***Now that I am in Grad School I have a deferrment. pay off any of your undergrad if you can since interest isnt accumalating
**** When financially stable pay off more than you have too a month


I will pob die and owe this money, But I am better off with my degrees than w/o ever have gotten them. I also onw a home and might just migh try for kids next year if I am ready. Sorry if this wasnt too helpful

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Posted by Sash

This may not be the best advice but this is what I have done:

*Consolidated
**During Financial Difficulties I received a forbearance, some can get a deferrment.
***Now that I am in Grad School I have a deferrment. pay off any of your undergrad if you can since interest isnt accumalating
**** When financially stable pay off more than you have too a month


I will pob die and owe this money, But I am better off with my degrees than w/o ever have gotten them. I also onw a home and might just migh try for kids next year if I am ready. Sorry if this wasnt too helpful

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

I chose the 15 year plan when I consolidated around the same time I was laid off from my job. I can't remember off the top of my head what the other options were. I didn't have a super hefty monthly payment to begin with, but it helped when I was out of work and just out of school and was a better alternative than deferring at the time. It went from about $165 to $105 a month - I'm sure with a larger monthly original payment, the difference will be much greater (as Darlene said above from $950 to $275 in her case.)

Best of luck!

Message edited 7/16/2008 12:25:22 AM.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Posted by LittleBlueBug

Posted by DancinBarefoot

My monthly loan payment before consolidation was $950. My monthly payment after consolidation was $275.

You should look into it. Call Sallie Mae and get the actual figures from them.

Wow!!! Really??? I will call them tomorrow! Thank you!! If you don't mind me asking (and you can FM me if you'd like), which repayment plan did you take?

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Posted by DancinBarefoot

Posted by LittleBlueBug

Posted by DancinBarefoot

My monthly loan payment before consolidation was $950. My monthly payment after consolidation was $275.

You should look into it. Call Sallie Mae and get the actual figures from them.

Wow!!! Really??? I will call them tomorrow! Thank you!! If you don't mind me asking (and you can FM me if you'd like), which repayment plan did you take?

If I remember correctly I took the shortest term they offered for repayment. I used all the money I didn't send Sallie Mae to pay for my wedding.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

When it was all said and done, I owed close to 60,000 (paid for both bachelors and masters).

With the pay off in 10 years plan my payments were 754.00 a month. I've done that for the past 7 months, but just increased my time to 20 years and lowered the payment to 340-something.

For now, we can live with that, but once I'm back working full-time (and with yearly raises), I'll increase the monthly rate.

Look- your education WAS worth it in the long run.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Don't be discouraged!! I owed over $30K in student loans. I consolidated and over 30 years my payments are only $180/m. I pay $200/m instead.

Honestly, I am not going to kill myself trying to pay off the loan in full. Student loans are not considered "bad debt" and I don't even notice the $180/m anymore since it comes out automatically.

I had this whole crazy plan to pay it off within five years but now I realized it is better for me to just pay a little each month and save up for what I really want ( a house! ).

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Like Tilde, I also had $30K for Grad School. I consolodated the two loans for it and somehow added an extra year onto my payments. Still gotta figure that one out. Anyway, I was doing the 20 year repayment and switched to the 10 because I want this over. Either way, there are all sorts of different terms to repay, such as 10, 15, 20 and 30 year loans. You are not set in stone. You can change your repayment plan! And as someone else said, it's not bad debt. Banks and lenders want to see school loans because a)you are showing repaying on a timely basis and b) you are actually doing something to increase your salary.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Message edited 7/16/2008 8:15:50 AM.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

I can relate to whta you are going through. If you are going to consolidate I just wanted to give you a little advice.

I have undergraduate loans through direct loan which weren't that much $10,000 but the interest rate is really low 2.75 or something ridiculous like that.

I also have law school loans about $110,000. $56,000 through the goverment and about $44,000 is private loans. I did not consolidate my undergrad gov't loans with my law school gov't loan because the interest rate on my law school loans was higher than my undergrad loans. What I did do was consolidate all my undergrad loans and also consolidated all my law school gov't loans and I make a payment to each.

Unfortunately it is my understanding I can't consolidate my private loans and the rate on them is over 7.0%.

The only loan I am concerned with paying off the quickest is my private loan due to the high interest rate.

The best thing I did was call each loan company and ask them what my options were and what the interest rate would be. If your sallie mae interest rate is really good and your direct loan interest rate is higher I wouldn't consolidate them with each other just consolidate the loans you have with each company.

I don't know what my payment would have been before I consolidated because I did it immediately after graduating from law school. Also once you consolidate there are different options to choose for repayment. Some of them make the payments for the first 5-10 years really low and then gradually you beginning paying more as the years go on. I have been out of law school since 2005 and my payments haven't increased yet.

Good luck.

Message edited 7/16/2008 8:17:28 AM.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Like the PPs, I also lowered my monthly payment quite a bit by consolidating them.

When money was tight for a while & I needed to pay off a rather large amount of credit card debt, I extended my student loan to a 30 yr. plan. My feeling was that 1) I needed to pay off the "bad debt" first 2) the interest was significantly lower than my cc rates (at the time I didn't qualify for 0% interest credit cards) - it was better to extend & lower my payment while I threw more $$ at my cc's. Now that they're all paid off, I've since shortened my loan term to 20 years. The payment is a bit lower than a 15 year plan, so it's left me with additional money to put towards our mortgage, home repairs, etc. HTH!

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

I dont want to be the bearer of bad news, but it is VERY HARD right now to consolidate loans, especially private.

Most banks arent doing consolidation anymore. I have direct (stafford) loans for graduate and the ONLY way I could consolidate is thru the government. It is a really bad situation right now.

Sallie Mae is definitely NOT consolidating any more private loans. Neither is Chase, Bank of America, or Citi.


Link :(

Try this link - its the government website.
Try this link

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

I also consolidated most of my loans (I have private student loans through citibank that cannot be consolidated). It helps alot!

Also, they have many different payment plans, when I first got out of school and had zero $ I switched to a graduated payment plan, so I was paying just a little principle at first, the payment increases as time goes by (based on the assumption that you will be making more). Student loan companies want to work with you, the do not want you to default. As long as you stay in contact with them, they will help you come up with reasonable payment options.

It does get easier over time, I still have years left on my loans, I cannot wait for the day when they are all paid off and I have another $800 a month to bank or play with

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

My DH's student loans are ridiculous and we managed to buy a house and have a baby.

Some months are tough, but we got my loan payment lowered so that helped. I will be paying it until DD is in college, but that doesn't bother me.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Do you work in a service profession? I was able to have one of my student loans forgiven because there was a lack of qualified people in my field.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

I went to a private school and have loans as well. Consolidate. Best advice ever. I use Great Lakes

eta: I have regular school loans not private loans

Message edited 7/16/2008 10:09:05 AM.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

I had both government and private loans. I could only consolidate the government loans. The private loan companies wanted to give me a a variable apr which is exactly what I had with Sallie Mae. I think CFS was one of the places that called me and I always get junk mail from NelNet.

Re: Student loans: could use advice from people who went to private schools

I agree with everyone else. Consolidate through Sallie Mae. You can pick what ever payoff plan works best for you.

I have my undergrad loans and I paid for my grad school entirely through loans.

I'm on a 20 year payoff plan, but I always pay more than the minimum, which gets applied toward my principle. I can change my plan if I wish to speed up the process.

If, even then, your payments are causing financial duress, then you can apply for a hardship deferral. But I think the first step is to try to consolidate.

Good luck!