Private Student Loan Consolidation: Know The Facts

By Heather Montrose

When students start out getting a varsity education, they often aren't prepared for what will occur once they finish school. They have to start working for an entry level income and at the same time they have to pay back a mountain debt concerning their student loans. After 6 months of leaving college your lender will start demanding that you pay back your student loans.

Depending on the amount of debt you have, this will mean that you are going to be repaying those loans for anything up to ten to 15 years. This is a giant burden and could cause you many problems. You have to find a way to manage this debt; one way is to do a private student loan consolidation.

You may ask for deferment for at least 2 years before you start repaying your loans for reasons of finance hardship. If you go back to college, even part-time, your educational loans will go into deferment until you once again finish school.

If you opt to do private student loan consolidation, you have to understand exactly what you are doing as you just get one chance to try this.

Know Your Options

You can select deferment, which comes in 2 forms. You can try for straight deferment where you do not make monthly payments on your loan for a specific time. In this time the interest of your student loans will still accrue.

There is also educational deferment; this is when you go back to school and you don't pay any payments until you again stop studying.

For times of unemployment or for a period of medical emergency you can also make an application for forbearance. This is where your loan payments will be paused for at least six months at a time to permit you to handle the situation.

The other option, private student loan consolidation can make your life much easier. What you do is go to a private student loan lender and then you take out one loan to cover all of the debt of your private student loan consolidation.

This means you take out one loan to cover everything, so you have just one payment each month. Rather than paying varying interest rates you pay one rate of interest that brings you a lower overall interest rate.

The advantages of private student loan consolidation are that with a lower rate of interest and a negotiating a repayment period that's beneficial you give yourself breathing room. You repay reasonable regular payments that ensure that your credit history stays healthy and gives you enough money to live on monthly. - 29969

About the Author:

Sign Up for our Free Newsletter

Enter email address here