Student Loan Consolidation -- How To Make A Wise Decision

Debt consolidation feels like instant freedom.

When you can not easily manage your debt, bundling it all up seems like a good idea. The most common way to do this is a debt consolidation loan. This loan takes all of your debts and wraps them into one loan.

Don't confuse it with bankruptcy, though. You still have to pay this money back. You are simply refinancing the money that you have borrowed.

Before you do this, you should know both sides of the story.

On The Good Side

Manage your money much easier with just 1 bill to pay each month. Gone is the anxiety as each bill comes in, like a Chinese water torture. Instead of incomprensible statements from credit cards, gas cards, student loans, and car loans, it can seem a blessing to get them down into one payment.

You'll get lower monthly payments. Since everything is tied into one payment, the amount that you need to pay monthly can be quite a bit lower.

Your interest rate is often lowered too. This is especially true on high rate credit cards.

Probably the biggest benefit is that you will not have to deal with creditors anymore.

On The Bad Side

It is crucial to realize that your debt is still your debt. It hasn't lessened and it hasn't gone away. You still have to pay it off.

It may take longer to pay off the debt. Because you have a lower monthly payment, you are likely to pay longer to get the loan down.

You will pay more in the long run. Finance charges and interest rates add up and they stretch out the amount that you owe for a longer period of time.

You will often need to secure your loan through property.

It may let you believe that you are more secure than you actually are. You may think that your debt is under control. And, you may think that you can keep spending now. That is not a good idea at all.

The Balance

When it comes to deciding on debt consolidation, look at all of the pros and cons.

You should shop around to find the lender who will offer you the best consolidation loan. You should examine the interest rate, the amount loaned, and whether it is a fixed or an adjustable rate loan.

You should know the type of consolidation loan that you qualify for and what the underlying factors are. Make sure to include whether you have a good credit rating, if you own equity, and whether you have a good amount of income coming in.

There are other forms of debt consolidation as well. One good one is a credit counseling service. These organizations help by working between you and the creditor. They can help to negotiate a lower interest rate from some lenders, as well as teach you how to more effectively manage your money.

Whichever path you choose, do it before the choices are taken away from you.

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Consolidate Student Loans - How it Works

Consolidating student loans is simple: If you meet certain requirements and you have student loans, you can consolidate them into a single loan. What this means is that the lender you choose will pay off the current student loan amounts that you still owe, and will combine the different amounts that you owe into just one loan. When the lender does this, you will probably see your monthly payment on student loans drop. And that's just what you are looking for, an easier and more affordable way to pay down your student loans.

Both students with student loans, and parents who owe on PLUS loans that they took out for their students, can consolidate their loans. Consolidating student loans (as long as they are federal student loans) does not require that you have a credit check done to prove that you qualify. Is that surprising to you? Well it's true. Your credit score, no matter what it is, does not disqualify you from getting a federal student loan consolidation approved.

To start out, you'll need to know whether your loans are federal student loans or private student loans. Federal student loans have the backing of the federal government and are usually known as the Perkins Loan, Stafford Loan, PLUS (Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students) or loans from the Department of Education. There are also other kinds of federal student loans, so you'll need to look at your student loan report to check on what type of loan you have. A private student loan is a loan that you or your parents took out from a private lender, and loans like this are not backed by the federal government and do not qualify for federal student loan consolidations.

If you are falling behind in your payments on this type of loan, call the lender that you make payments to and ask whether you can consolidate your loans with them or negotiate lower monthly payments.

For consolidating student loans, you have to:

o Have at least $10,000 in student loan debt. This $10,000 must be all federal student loan debt, not a mixture of federal and private loans.

o Be in your grace period or repayment period. Your grace period is the time period after you take out a loan before your payments start. Your repayment period begins after your grace period ends. Your repayment period is when you make monthly payments on your loan(s).

o Not be in default status on any of your loans. Default status is when you have fallen several months behind in your payments and you have received a notice of default from the lender. If you are in default, don't be afraid to look for a consolidation loan anyway. A lender may be able to work out an agreement on how you can pay off the default and still consolidate your loans.

o Be a U.S. resident or permanent resident. Notice that citizenship is not a requirement, just residency.

o Not have consolidated the same loans before, or have gone back to school and accrued more loans to consolidate with the original consolidation

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