Crikey this is confusing

[OB1🤙]

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So I just graduated (woo hoo!) and have faced the first ugly task of post med-school life- loan consolidation.

Plugged myself into Graduate Leverage and they have confused the ever-loving crap out of me.

My situation (all current loans through MedLoans/Sallie Mae/Lucifer's Loans-R-Us)):

$76,120 consolidated @ 2.875%
$39,389 consolidated @ 4.75%
$30,000 stafford @ 6.8%
$8500 sub. stafford @ 6.8%
$one metric $hitton of private loans

GL recommends me to consolidate the 2.875% debt with the current sub stafford $8500 and says with incentives I'll get it to 1.875% (after 30 payments)

They also recommend in a separate application to consolidate the 30K current unsub. stafford by itself, and it'll go from 6.8% to 5.625% with the incentives.

They say they can't get a better rate on the 4.75% debt and to leave it at Sallie Mae.

Thoughts on this? Seems confusing and complicated to me, just wanted to run it by people that know more about it than I do. Does this seem standard?

 

[okbye]

Well, I would recommend continuing comparison because my company offers better repayment incentives than that and I'm sure others do too. I could get you 2.875% on the total balance of $154009.00 after 24 months, assuming you make the payments on time.

I can see why you're confused, that is a pretty weird way of doing it. I tried calculating it a few different way and don't really see the benefit of what they want to do, in your favor anyway. The only way they could get the 78k already consolidated over to their company would be to add something to it, that must be why they want to add the smallest balance and reconsolidate. Having 3 separate loans will give you monthly payments of $1009.00/month while putting them together would make it $768.00/month. Higher payment + multiple payments = more likely to miss one and lose your incentives.

(our repayment incentives are a bit better and I cant change the computer program to enter their incentives so your actual amounts will be slightly higher, but their relationship to each other is the same)

The way they want to do it will cost you 81422.00 in interest, 858.00/mo.
Putting them all together will cost 61716.00 in interest, 768.00/mo.
leaving the 2.875% loan alone and consolidating the rest together will cost 62320.00 in interest, 775.00/mo
leaving the 4.75% loan alone and consolidating the rest together will cost 56975.00 in interest, 817.00/mo (the reason is because the 4.75% loan is on a 20 year term which costs less in total interest)
Putting all the loans together with a 20 year loan instead of 30 years will cost 45070.00 in interest and give a monthly payment of 963.00.

Best bet if you can make the payments - putting them all together on a 20 year term. You can also take the longer 30 year loan for the lower payments starting out if you need to and make larger payments when you're in a better position.

Wow, I don't know if this post is any less confusing. 🙂

 

[c.bear]

GL has done two of my consolidations. My most recent consolidation is not as complicated as yours but decently complicated. They have great phone support. Just give them a call. It might be complicated because of the benefits that you have with each of the consolidations.

 

[johnstoner]

Hey hawaiian bruin, did you move to UCLA yet? I'll try to give you a call sometime, did you change your phone number?

anyway, i know consolidating loans deadline is coming up but i think you already consolidated your old loans right? You should keep the private loans where they are...pay them off as soon as you can...but with the new loan for 06-07...keep them around and don't consolidate...if rates go down from 6.8% then consolidate...i think you can do this because you are applying for edconomic hardship deferrment as I am doing.

We pretty much have the same loan situation and I have some general strategies that i'm doing so check out my website for more details. you might be with a different lender...i'm with THE northstar...it seems that graduate leverage is gaining momentum in this forum though

 

[Slippermen]

Interesting report out of Kennedy's office with a large section devoted to T.H.E

http://kennedy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Student Loan Report.pdf

I too, had an offer from GL and asked the Department of Education about it. They seemed awfully skeptical abd stated that some of the items may be prohibited.