Student Loan News, Updates and Blog Posts

Consolidation is the ultimate debt management tool, but is it really worth it?

As most of you already know consolidation is designed to minimize your monthly payment by extending out your loan term, but that also has an adverse effect.  The extension of time also adds to your total repayment amount.  So basically if you can afford your payments now it may not be a bad thing to keep the statues quo.  However, the winds of change are ushering in a new reality that may hurt student borrowers.

Beginning July 1, the majority of families who hold federal Stafford, Grad PLUS or Parent PLUS loans will receive notices that their loans have been bought by the Department of Education, which may just mean the termination of your sweet benefits.

Before the Department of Education started buying loans under ECASLA (Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act) in 2007, lenders offered certain discounts to borrowers to entice them to consolidate with their organization, but those discounts get dissolved when your loan changes zip codes and ends up with the DOE.

My friend Tannaz was offered a .50 ACH discount a few years ago by her lender while my buddy Mark was offered a 2 percent discount off his remaining principal balance after making 36 consecutive ontime payments. But when ECASLA took effect, lenders who wanted their loans to be purchased by the Department of Education had to stop offering almost all of those incentives.

If you listen closely you can hear the sound of the free market crumbling.  Hold onto something solid – that wind of change is about to hit Tropical Storm status.