Print Article for : Pay My Student Loans

Your Online Guide » Loans Guide » College Student Loan

[P119]Pay My Student Loans

by Kara Lilly, Kar

When it comes to student loans, there is a huge variety to choose from. One of the nation’s leading providers of student loans is Sallie Mae. The Sallie Mae Company has provided numerous federal and private loans, including consolidation loans for undergraduate and graduate students and their parents.

What types of Sallie Mae loans are there? Here are a few:

1. Signature Student Loan – This loan is a popular after-Stafford loan. If grants, scholarships and Federal Stafford loans have not covered the total cost of your education, Signature Student loans can help. To qualify, you must attend a community college or a four- or five-year college at least halftime and be working toward your degree; you must meet credit criteria; and you must be making progress toward a degree.

There are aggregate loan limits with Community Colleges at $50,000, four and five year colleges starting at $100,000 and going up to $220,000. The interest rates are variable and based on the Prime Rate. Fees are usually zero percent and are assessed depending on credit history. Standard repayment term is 15 years with the option to extend to 30 years.

2. Tuition Answer Loan – The Tuition Answer loan helps bridge your education financing gap after federal student loans and traditional financial aide have been considered. The amount borrowed is from $1,500 to $40,000 per year. The borrower must have good credit. Applicants must be able to provide proof that the student is enrolled (full or half time) at an eligible college, graduate, trade, or technical school. This may be any document that displays the student's name, enrollment period, and the name of the school, such as a tuition bill, application, or a printout of an online class schedule. The interest rate for the Tuition Answer Loan is Prime Rate, adjusted monthly, plus a margin depending on your credit history and/or the addition of a cosigner. There is a one-time loan fee and repayment options are varied.

3. Signature Student Loans for Community Colleges - If grants, scholarships, and Federal Stafford loans have not covered the total cost of your community college education, the Signature Student Loan for Community Colleges can help. The Signature Student Loan a popular after-Stafford loan. You must attend a community college at least halftime and be working toward your degree. To qualify, you must meet credit criteria, borrowers must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and International students are eligible with a creditworthy cosigner.

The Signature Student Loan has a high approval rate. If you have less-than-ideal credit or no credit at all, you can still be eligible for the Signature Student Loan by applying with a creditworthy cosigner. The minimum amount you can borrow is $500 with an aggregate amount of $50,000. Interest rates are variable and based on the Prime rate and there is no disbursement fee; repayment fees are 0%–3% depending on credit history. Standard repayment term is 15 years, with the option to extend terms (up to 30 years) for higher aggregate loan balances.

4. Continuing education loans - The Continuing Education Loan is a private, credit-based loan that provides financing for postsecondary students not seeking degrees and for part-time, degree-seeking students. The Continuing Education Loan has interest rates and fees that reward good credit.

Repayment terms of up to 15 years are available. If you have less-than-ideal credit or no credit at all, you can still be eligible for the Continuing Education Loan by applying with a creditworthy cosigner. You may borrow for both tuition and other education-related expenses. There is no aggregate loan limit.

The Continuing Education Loan has interest rates that reward good credit and are as low as Prime + 0% for borrowers with excellent credit. Interest rates are variable and reset monthly.

Loan fees are 0%–6.5%. As for repayment, you may take up to 15 years to repay your loan. With the standard repayment option, you make level, monthly payments of principal and interest. The minimum monthly payment is $30. With the interest-only repayment option, you make interest-only payments while you are in school and begin standard repayment of principal and interest once school is completed.

The options are numerous, which one will you choose?

Education costs are quite high these days and this is the reason why so many people often end up with multiple student loans. It is not only the high tuition fee for education like medical that makes students take multiple student loans. Even students in public universities doing average programs require financial aid.

Student loan consolidation is a big help when the time for repaying all these loans comes around. There are several benefits in going for student loan consolidation including transferring all debts to a single lender, low interest rate, reworking of the repayment plan, improving credit rating, lower monthly payments, and so on.

Students can focus more on their job and careers rather than worrying about repaying different loans. Keeping tracking of so many different payments to make each month can become bothersome and missing a payment creates its own problems that are not welcome. Through student loan consolidation, it is possible to avoid all these issues.

The student loan consolidation process typically works as follows. As a student, it is possible that you take several different loans from several loan providers. Each lender will give a loan for a different amount at a different interest rate and repayment options. What student loan consolidation does is repay the outstanding amount on all these loans, then transfer the cumulative amount to a new loan. All your current debtors with their own interest rates are paid off and you basically owe the money to a single lender after consolidation. At this point, you are also offered the chance to negotiate for a low interest rate or a longer repayment plan. This way, you get rid of the problem of keeping track of several debtors, you have a lower interest rate and that lowers your monthly payments, and you can repay the consolidated loan at your own pace.

It is also possible to seek out options in federal consolidation loans where the interest rate is fixed as long as the loan exists. It will require some digging around, looking for the one option that suits you best. But considering the amount of money this can save you the effort, is fully justified. It is also important to check your eligibility for such an option.

Several websites offer you an online calculator where you can calculate the interest rate on a consolidated student loan based on the interest rate on your current loans. After this, you simply round off to the closest 1/8th of a percent of the weighted average of the interest rate on all the student loans for which you are eligible.

Most student loans come with a repayment plan spanning around 10 years starting 6 months after completion of the education program. Through federal consolidation loans it is possible to stretch those 10 years to as much as 30. Just remember that the longer you take to repay the loan, the more you are paying in interest. It is tempting to stretch the loan as much as possible but that is not always a sound financial decision as you will end up paying a lot more than you should.

It is also possible to lock in a low interest rate while you are still in school. Locking the interest rate will instantly require you to start repayment but since you are still a student you also get the benefit of deferment until your program is finished. The obvious disadvantage to this procedure is that you are no longer eligible for the 6 month grace period. Your repayment begins the day your education program is completed. You still have an option of requesting forbearance for up to 12 months on the consolidated loan. Once again, you have to judge the worth of this exercise based on your financial situation and job prospects.

Availing student loan consolidation is much easier today. This is because of the limitless information on the Internet as well as the search functions available there. With a few simple searches on the web you will soon have all the information you require to get started and can easily compare them against one another to find the one that suits you best. Most websites are updated constantly to reflect the latest changes in policies and interest rates so you are never lagging behind in terms of information. Some websites offer exclusively comparison services where you basically get to compare consolidation offers against each other. These are great once you have the basic information at hand.

There are federal as well as private lending organizations offering student loan consolidation services.

Article Source : Pg. 2

About Author

Both Kara Lilly & Scott Fromherz are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Kara Lilly has sinced written about articles on various topics from College Student Loan, College Education and Golf Guide. Kara Lilly, a Librarian for over 15 years in College Park, creates the Eduology for , a leading provider of homework help, college directories with satellite. Kara Lilly's top article generates over 14800 views. to your Favourites.

Scott Fromherz has sinced written about articles on various topics from Celebrities, Education Toys and Distance Learning. For more information on student loan consolidation go to http://www.ConsolidationFind.com or visit http://www.articleadvocate.com/Category/Debt-Consolidation/100. Scott Fromherz's top article generates over 74000 views. to your Favourites.