Undergrad Loan Consolidation

[ODduck]

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For current OD's and OD students that left their undergraduate institution with considerable debt already...

When you consolidated your undergrad loans, were you able to defer monthly payments until you are/were done with optometry school? If so, who did you do this with? Was your credit sufficient to do this without a co-signer? Now that I've been accepted, this is the next thing on my list to start thinking about. I will get my B.S. with approximately 60K debts and I just can't think of any way that I'll be able to do monthly payments while in OD school. Anything helps, thanks a lot.

 

[bellaluna]

Federal loans are deferred as long as you're in school (including opt school), but private loans are trickier and you'll have to read the small print.

FYI - My private loans WEREN'T deferable and will never be. NEVER take out private loans!! (ok, some are fine, but read every bit of print before signing - even if the school says they're fine)

 

[Ryan_eyeball]

Federal loans are deferred as long as you're in school (including opt school), but private loans are trickier and you'll have to read the small print.

FYI - My private loans WEREN'T deferable and will never be. NEVER take out private loans!! (ok, some are fine, but read every bit of print before signing - even if the school says they're fine)

Just talk to your financial officer at your school for the inschool loan defer papers. When you go to consolidate all your loans after Undergrad and OD school, be careful because sometimes you lose that 6 month grace period. Therefore, the loan first repayment starts in June, one month after graduation.

 

[cpw]

Just talk to your financial officer at your school for the inschool loan defer papers. When you go to consolidate all your loans after Undergrad and OD school, be careful because sometimes you lose that 6 month grace period. Therefore, the loan first repayment starts in June, one month after graduation.

Ryan makes a great point here. When you consolidate.. do your research !! you can get some great deals here. Our class split up a giant list of consolidators and started making phone calls. We'd meet up the next day with the lists of companies, put the % rates and grace periods on the board, plus any interest rate incentives for on-time payments etc. We all ended up with great deals that way by sharing the research work. 👍