A typical consolidation loan designed to deal with student loans combines several student or parent loans for students into one comprehensive loan from one single lender. Consolidation loans are available for most federal student loans including FFELP (Stafford, PLUS and SLS), FISL, Perkins, NSL, HEAL, Guaranteed Student Loans and Direct loans. Generally, a person can end up saving money on the interest rate associated with a consolidated student loan. The interest rate is computed on a consolidation loan by weighing the average of all the existing interest rates on the student or parent loans that currently are in place. The consolidated student loan will be capped at 8.25% and will also be rounded up to the nearest 1/8 of a percent. While you can save money on the consolidated rate in some instances, you do need to keep in mind that the weighted average actually may not change the underlying interested cost of the loan overall because it actually is the average of the interest rates for the overall loan balance of the individual existing loans. Continue reading about how to find a reputable lender ...

Article by, Athlon and courtesy of Student Loan Consolidation Rebate

Posted by Candice Arnold on October 29, 2008 at 9:38 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

As college tuitions continue to increase, students are looking for ways to compensate. One of the ways they've chosen is to push themselves to graduate in three years. According to the Campus Career Counselor newsletter, students and colleges alike are onboard with reducing the amount of debt students face after graduation. Students also view graduating early as an extra year to "earn a salary."

Some worry that students may be solving one problem by creating another. That's not necessarily the case. There are ways to reduce the number of years spent in college without taking on too much at once. The CLEP and DANTES tests allow students to earn college credits and save money.

The cost of going to college isn't likely to go down any time soon, if at all. If students can handle the work load required to help them graduate a year early, it's okay. Only time will tell whether taking on 20 or more credits per semester is too much for the average college student to handle.

Posted by Candice Arnold on October 16, 2008 at 7:42 AM | Leave a Comment (0)