Thursday, June 11, 2009

Student Loan Consolidation Interest Rate

When you are consolidating your student loan, what is the first thing that goes to your mind? A lot of you might say it is the interest rate. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact, as a consumer, you deserve the best interest rate when you are consolidating your loans. So, below are some tips to help you to get the best interest rate.

1. Credit

The easiest way for you to earn the best rate is to have a credit score of at least 660.

2. Other criteria

However, there are also other factors involve which can affect your interest rate such as your family size, the loans you are holding, future career, annual income and co-signer credit history (only needed when you are going for private student loan consolidation).

Let's take a look at the income contingent repayment (ICR) plan. In this plan, your minimum monthly payment is just $5 and this amount shouldn't be much of the trouble for most of you. However, you can only qualify for this plan when you have a family and you are a direct loan borrower. So, you see, there are much more involved than credit score when you are talking about the rate for your student loan consolidation.

3. Amount and period

The more loans you consolidate and the longer your loan period, the better rate you can get. However, this is not something worth cheering of. Although you can enjoy low rate, you are actually paying more at the end of your extended loan period.

4. Federal or private

As you probably know, federal loan consolidation doesn't care what your credit score is, it merely locks in the lowest rate for the whole loan period. Since the interest rate for federal government student loan consolidation is review at July, 1 every year, it is best that you consolidate your student loans after that.

Although private student loan consolidation rate can fluctuate with the market rate, this means that you can negotiate your interest rate with the private loan consolidators. You can even enjoy lower rate when you and your co-signer credit history are good. Besides that, private loan consolidators also offer various discounts and incentive so that you can save some money even you are not eligible for fixed interest rate.

5. Online services

Speaking of discounts and incentives, more and more loan agencies are willing to give you a better student loan consolidation interest rate when you adopt their online services.

And to minimize long hauling discussions, a lot of loan agencies are starting to display their repayment package and rate online. This can save you a lot of time when you are researching which loan institution to go to.

To learn much more about [http://www.studentloanconsolidationhowto.blogspot.com]student loan consolidation, visit StudentLoanConsolidationHowTo.blogspot.com where you will find this and much more including [http://studentloanconsolidationhowto.blogspot.com/2009/06/student-loan-consolidation-comparison.html]student loan consolidation comparison.

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Posted by bestwish at 6:15 PM

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Student Loan Rates - Tips For Student Loans

By Joel Davis
Getting a college education for many people sees the need for astudent loan. Finding the best student loan rate of interestfrom a financial institution is an important consideration thatmay save you money when the time comes for student loanrepayment.
Generally a student loan is not required to repaid until thestudent graduates and has finished his or her schooling. It’svery easy during the educational period to be unconcerned abouta loan and not have some sort of repayment plan in mind.
The student loan rates will then be an important factor as thegraduate will be starting a new job, possibly finding newaccommodation, and have travel and living costs to cover. Everycent will count in the beginning and even a difference of 1% inthe student loan repayment will have an effect on livingstandards.
Read the contract fine print;
Some lenders charge fees to set up a student loan that canincrease the cost of the loan. Often a lender will offer a lowinterest rate that seems most competitive. However these lowrates are often off set or can actually cost more due to thestudent loan fees that are charged.
On the flip side lenders that don’t charge the fees will rollover the costs into the interest rate. As a general rule threeto four percent in fees is about the same as a one percenthigher interest rate.
Check to see if the student loan interest rate is fixed orvariable, a fixed loan may be more expensive than a variablerate at the time of application but if the variable rates are torise in the future the fixed loan would have been the bestoption.
This is something where the student will have to consider theeconomy and seek out advice on the direction of future interestrates. Use a student loan calculator to calculate future loaninterest rates. This can give you a general idea of what theloan will cost you per month but remember it is only anestimate.
At the time of writing a Stafford Federal loan has a 6.80%fixed student loan rate. Compared to a student loan rate with anaverage private loan rate of 8.25%, you’ll quickly see why manystudents turn to the Federal government for the best loan rates.
Find out when the interest begins accruing. Typically, thestudent loan rates won't take affect until six weeks until afteryou graduate. That means you have time to save up in order topay your loans back. But you should make sure of this so thatyou're not caught by surprise when that first bill becomes due.
It’s always a smart thing to shop around for the best studentloan rates available to you; you may get lucky and find even abetter loan than a Stafford loan has to offer. Taking thesesteps will give you peace of mind and be stress free, allowingyou to focus on your main goal, completing your studies andgetting the education to go out and get that great job orbusiness you deserve.
About the Author: Joel Davis is the webmaster athttp://www.studentloan-blog.com for making informed choices andstudent loans easy to understand.
Source: http://www.isnare.com
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