quarta-feira, 10 de março de 2010

Get Rid of Your Student Loans With Student Loan Consolidation


Now that you have attained your educational goals and have graduated with a degree, the time has come to repay your student loan obligations. If you are like many, student debt is one of your biggest worries, especially since six to nine months following graduation will mark the beginning of your repayment cycle. Many students who have incurred a mound of student loan debt turn to student loan consolidation to ensure that they only pay one monthly payment to one lender each month.
You may be wondering how you have amassed this huge debt. It is not difficult to accrue debt while attending college. Education is not expensive and tuition has been on the rise for many years. Couple that with the other costs of living the life of a college student and the expenses of attending school and it is not hard to see the average student walking away from their education, degree in hand, with a debt of $50,000 or more. Grad have it even worse.
One Payment For Many Loans
Another trouble with student loans is that they are rarely written by one servicer. Even those students who have taken out federal loans like the Perkins or Stafford loan find that they may very well end up with three to four different lenders (or more) over the course of their education. That makes for a confusing time when students begin repayment because they may need to write out a check to each and every lender each and every month. Student consolidation puts an end to that confusion and makes the monthly payment process streamlined.
Student Loan Consolidation For Non-Degree Holding Students
But student loan consolidation is not solely for the degree packing student. Many students who have not completed their degrees but have dropped out of school or dropped below full time status are also in repayment only six to nine months later. Student consolidation can work for these students as well, and is a great alternative to ruining your credit record. And before you consider bankruptcy, be forewarned - while certain private student loans may be discharged under the bankruptcy code, no federal loan will be.
One of the biggest benefits of obtaining a student loan consolidation is that you can reduce the interest that you are paying on your existing loans. This is particularly true of higher interest private student loans that may be literally costing you an arm and a leg. Student loans are less flexible than student loan consolidation programs in the repayment terms that you must adhere to, as most agreements are basically written in stone.
With a consolidation loan, you can choose to defer payments or extend the period of repayment to a longer number of years, reducing the total amount of money that you must come up with each month. This is a good way to keep more of your income in your pocket to pay for everyday necessities and other bills that you have, allowing you to rely less on expensive credit cards or charge accounts.