NWR: Student Loans

eclipsethecat · July 2009

How much of your income goes towards student loans each month? Currently almost 25% of my income goes towards loans- Kevin's as well. Im wondering if we are missing the boat and need to consolidate?

Tarah716 · July 2009

I consolidated as soon as I was out of school!

sunkissed212 · July 2009

It's right around 25% for me as well...I need to consolidate. I actually brought my stuff to work with me today to call and see what I can do, but didn't get to it (read: too much knotting)

~ K · July 2009

I consolidated right out of school too. As it stands now, my student loans are about 9% of my monthly income.

ksunquest · July 2009

mine are all in deferment since I am in school. I cringe when I think about what my monthly payment will be. However, I did consolidate right out of school for my undergrad loans. I had a loan counselor tell me once not to consolidate BOTH you and your husband's loans. This is horrible.....because if one of you dies, the other would still be responsible for the entire loan balance, but if you keep them seperate and one dies, then the debt dies, too. I don't know how much truth there is in it, though.

jennic22 · July 2009

I ended up with a grand total of <20,000 and pay 175 per month over 10 years. My interest rate is less than 2%. Not too bad as far as I can tell. I would suggest looking into consolidating now, because I think interest rates are low now.

corinne2010 · July 2009

I am currently not paying on my student loans because I'm back in school so they're automatically deferred. But, right after I graduated from college, I consolidated my loans at a 6.25% interest rate. If 25% of your income is going towards student loans, you definitely need to consolidate! My payments were around $160/mo which was not that bad.

eclipsethecat · July 2009

Katie if one of us died the other would just have to die too because the loans would be too much. LOLI guess part of my feeling for not consolidating was, well we have the money right now (thank god for jobs,) so we might as well pay it if we can afford it, BUT now I want to focus on saving and all our money goes to student loans it feels like. This is a stupid question, but when you consolidate do you space out the payments and pay more in the end? (Because you are paying interest on them for longer?) Or am I completely confused?PS I am not a bad lender- I came out of MSU with almost no loans it was only when I graduated from U of M that I had them- and their financial aid office SUCKS.

eclipsethecat · July 2009

I have $40,000 worth of loans and am paying $800 a month in loan payments so what you guys are saying is making me feel like I have been paying too much. Does it matter that mine are all from different places (like the Feds have the big one, Citi has one, one from U of M, one from Perkins.)

BC&MM · July 2009

I do not think consolidation is an option. I have tried soooo many places and they will not consolidate. I know I can't get a lower rate ( mine is high), but I wanted to limited the number of payments, 5, for easy payments. I would say that about 10% of my income goes to loan. I have been dumping money on them even when I was in school because of the fear of how much payments would be. And I pay extra on them every month. Should you do the income sensitive option for now?

BC&MM · July 2009

PS. I had $45,000 to begin with and my payment was only $310 for interest ranging from 6.8 to 7%. I paid extra and now have less loans, so the payment is smaller.

honeylamb · July 2009

I pay about 6% of my income to student loans. But my loans are only through the US dept of education and I consolidated. I was lucky to consolidate about 4 years ago when the interest rate was less than 3%. I was nervous about consolidating but it has worked out for me so far.

eclipsethecat · July 2009

Oh. This might help- the biggest loans are big sucky Stafford loans (unsub and sub) that have fixed interest rates .Does that make a difference?

corinne2010 · July 2009

Holy EFF! Girl, you need to consolidate! $800/mo is like a mortgage payment. How it works is, the consolidation company takes the total debt and divides that into a reasonable amount of money you'd be willing to pay each month. There's different payment options too so you don't always have to pay every month. It could be every other month or every 6 months. Check out aessuccess.org. That's who I consolidated with.

ksunquest · July 2009

I do know this for a fact. You can not consolidate gov't loans (perkins, stafford, etc), with private loans (citibank). What I did was consolidate all of my gov't loans into one payment and consolidated all of my private loans into one. you CAN opt to pay them for longer, but you don't have to. I thinkt he maximum time is like 15 years or something crazy....

eclipsethecat · July 2009

The sad thing is that it is the government that is the one hurting us the most, its not even an evil bank. LOL

honeylamb · July 2009

I have a collegue who has over $125K in student loans and he only pays $800/month. You should look into consolidating if you can.

boogerbearoriginal · July 2009

My payments are around 4% of my income. I would consolidate and soon.

Shann816 · July 2009

You can only consolidate federal loans, FYI. Trust me I will be doing this when I'm done with grad school. Any private loans you have you're SOL and stuck with their interest rate, which is probably variable. Consolidating just locks in the interest rate which like a mortgage, is good or bad depending on what the rates are when you lock in.

eclipsethecat · July 2009

Its the government ones that are large- I only have one private one and it is for a small amount. Do you pay for a longer amount of time if you consolidate?

rootmel1 · July 2009

I pay almost $800 a month in student loans as well...from undergrad and grad school. You definitely cannot consolidate private and gov't loans. You should also look at what your interest rates are. I have two government loans, one of them is from my undergrad and I have a ridiculously low interest rate on it...if I consolidated that one with the other, I would loose that low rate...and for me, this would cost me more money in the end than keeping them separate. I would look at all of your options and get out the calculator! Good luck!

eclipsethecat · July 2009

It just sucks because every month I pay that which is basically all for Grad School and right now my Masters isnt helping me get any jobs. It is like BOOYAH you wont be able to have kids when you want because you cant save money because you are paying US!

Shann816 · July 2009

No it's not necessarily the length of time you pay it's the interest rate that matters. On my private loans it would vary from 6 to 8% and my payments followed that. Consolidating gives you a set payment every month no matter what, it's nicer to budget that way. You can always pay extra if you find yourself with extra cash and wanting to pay them down faster.

BC&MM · July 2009

Actually, for private loans, the rate is probably lower than government loans. At least mine is because it is variable, but my goverment ones are locked. Consolidating does not always get longer payment terms, that might depend on what you have now.

Shann816 · July 2009

You might be right because my private ones have been deferred since the economy tanked and interest rates dropped.. but either way I hated that my payments changed every 3-6 months.. it was annoying.

eclipsethecat · July 2009

Thank you for the help girls- I will call my Mom tonight and talk to her about it (she is the guru when it comes to this stuff.) It just has been burning me up for a while. LOL

renate2162 · July 2009

Your student loans can be canceled when you die or even if you can prove you are permanently disabled. This means that when you die your estate does not pay your loan, the loan just goes away. I don't know anything about consolidation but I don't think your spouse can be held responsible to pay your student loans if you die. The only way I believe that could happen is if he entered into a contract with the lenders to assume responsibility of your loans, which would be totally dumb to do.

LISA R · July 2009

I cant believe you posted this. lol I have a frigging headache filling out the paper work to start consolidating mine. Its crazy.

aprillm730 · July 2009

Ok this topic got me thinking.... my loans are deferred until November of this year. We are in the very early stages of house hunting and I was thinking about consolidating both loans (one govt and one private) into the mortgage of the house if we are able. Now, when you say you cannot consolidate govt and private loans, does that mean that you can't consolidate them together into one loan, or does that mean you cannot do anything with them together like put them both in a mortgage???

ksunquest · July 2009

You can not consolidat them together into two loans. I have no idea on the consolidation with the mortgage issue, though.

efabian · July 2009

I'm a little late answering this but I got caught knotting yesterday at work so I have to lay low for a while...I am paying around 25% of my income on my loans right now, but when I looked into consolidating I would of ended up only saving $100 a month and would end up paying $75,000 in interest in the end, in addition to the 50k I took out to begin with. To me, since it's not unreasonable (it's annoying, but not unreasonable yet) for me to keep paying the loans how they are, I didn't consolidate. I would get a calculator and go to aessuccess.org and use their consolidation tool and find out if it would be best for your situation. I was set on consolidating until I found out how much I would be paying in interest so I will hold off as long as I can. (hopefully I can hold off for the ten years it's going to take me to pay it off so I don't have to worry about it EVER again!)

NWR: Student Loans

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