We’re trying to decide if we should use the consolidation option offered from the fed or leave them separate.

Any other suggestions?

Are you eligible for any sort of loan forgiveness programs, due to your career? (There are various program for folks like cops, teachers, nurses, etc.)

If so, make sure you check closely that any consolidation won't affect that.

I shot myself in the foot with that, unknowingly. I could have had my loans forgiven after 10 years due to working in public service, but by consolidating my loans shortly after graduating (before this loan forgiveness option was available) I rendered myself no longer eligible for the new loan forgiveness program. Whereas if I had left them alone, I would have qualified when the new program was instituted.

Nope, we’ve looked at a few things. Just trying to make sure we don’t make a costly mistake. Right now there are a few loans from 3.5 to 6% and if we consolidate, it finds an average.

It’s really not clear which loan they’d apply the payment to first if we didn’t consolidate, though I assume the oldest, but not necessarily the highest interest. I can see an option to specify.

I consolidated the ones that were low interest, and got a .25% discount for auto-pay.

The higher interest (private) loans I consolidated through SoFi and got a much lower interest rate.

quote:

Originally posted by Riley:
We’re trying to decide if we should use the consolidation option offered from the fed or leave them separate.

Any other suggestions?

Yes, Pay off the higher interest rate ones with as much as you can spare.....and pay the minimums on the low interest rate ones.

Check out SoFi, they consolidated ours and lowered interest rates a good bit. Payed them off
Earlier than expected.