Stafford Lender choices (please help)

[PeasOnToast]

For those of you who are choosing or have already chosen Stafford Lenders, do you have any general recommendations on which are good or bad?

Specifically, I am trying to choose between a lender that works electronically with the school and one that deals in paper checks (which I would have to pick up), does anyone have personal experience with this and how much of a pain in the arse it is?

Thanks for your thoughts.

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[daisygirl]

I chose a lender that isn't the preferred lender of the medical school that I will be attending this fall. I chose Total Higher Education (T.H.E.) because they do not charge any guarantee/origination fees on the loans that you take out, so you get every penny that you take out. After I compared T.H.E. with the preferred lenders of my school(Key and MedLoans), I couldn't find any reason to go with the preferred lenders because T.H.E. offers pretty much the same stuff after graduation (pay on time incentives, etc...).

The only bonus with going with the preferred lenders would be that my school could do all transactions electronically instead of the snail mail route. I am not worried though because there are a few people at my school that use T.H.E., and the financial aid office had nothing bad to say about the company.

I can't tell you if it is a pain in the arse yet...but I can tell you sometime in September :wink: .

 

[PeasOnToast]

That's exactly what I'm hoping to do. T.H.E. has great rates and the best incentive plan.

I was curious if anyone had experience dealing with them yet?

 

[Dr. Kermit]

I went with my school's loan provider (Citibank.) I was going to use THE, however, I was told there wasn't any benefit using a program until one consolidated all of his loans. Essentially, you won't know what your financial status is during residency and if you put off paying your loans then you may be in trouble. That is only what my FA officer told me. He said to use what the school preferred and then when it came time to repayment, I could transfer to Sallie Mae or THE for the loan repayment options.

 

[Anath]

I was going to go with T.H.E. I had been given a list of preferred lenders and they were one of them. However, when I called the financial aid office, the lady strongly suggested the Sallie Mae/AAMC Medloan stafford instead. She agreed that T.H.E does save you money in terms of origination fees, and eventually, the decrease in interest after paying consistently. But she said that one of the great things about Medloan is that they look out for you when it comes down time for residencies searches and traveling. I'm not exactly sure if she's really convinced me just yet.