direct loan repayment question

[lobon]

if you have multiple direct stafford loans can you make a voluntary payment to just one loan (i.e. the loan with the highest interest rate)? this does not seem to be an option online- it just divides your payment proportionally between loans

 

[dpmd]

You can direct payments, you just have to be willing to stay on top of it to make sure it gets applied correctly. They will first take any unpaid interest for all the loans, then whatever is left you can indicate which loan you want it applied toward. I did this in the past. Inevitably they didn't apply it correctly, so I would have to call and spend a bunch of time on the phone until they corrected it. Would suck to do each month, but I was just making extra payments a few times a year at that point. You should call and get the address for their special payment handling division (after about a year of playing this game with one lender, someone finally told me there was a different address to which you could mail in payments with special instructions that would supposedly avoid this problem). Worth it if your interest rates are significantly different.

 

[pmpkn219]

I submitted some payments online to the Direct Loans website, and they evenly distributed as you said.

I had to wait several days for the payment to go in and distribute, then call and tell them to only apply it to my GradPLUS (the higher rated loans) and then about 5-10 days later the website showed they had.

They told me there's no way to send the money to the right place straight off, if you submit a payment online. I don't receive paper bills, so not sure about the mail-in options.