Question about repaying Stafford and Grad Plus loans

[p9142]

If you have Stafford and Grad Plus loans from the same company, do you make one payment, or do you pay the two loans seperately? I am concered that if I have both loans with one company, they might apply my payments to the low interest loan first, leaving the grad plus to accumulate interest at 8.5% until the Staffords are paid off. If that is the case I might use two separate companies for each type of loan to avoid this scenario.

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[dpmd]

There should be separate account numbers, or some other way of distinguishing between them. However, unless you send your payments in specifying exactly how you want them paid (and they pay attention to it) you may have problems. But if you keep a close eye on it you can call to have any mis-applied payments corrected (I have done this numerous times for my staffords-some were consolidated at 2.85, and some are higher, then you factor in wanting extra payments to go just to the unsubsidized higher interest rate loans and it gets too confusing for the company...or they just want to make more money off you). If all else is equal, having separate companies might be better. I don't know if the incentives they offer change in relation to what other loans you have with them (something to check into).