Student Loan Consolidation Success

Have You Heard That SimpleTuition Has Expanded Offering to Include More Than 100 Student Loan Products from Dozens of Top Lenders?

2007-05-15T04:04:00.000-07:00

The following article includes pertinent information that may cause you to reconsider what you thought you understood about the recent anouncement that SimpleTuition has expanded offering to include more than 100 student loan products from dozens of top lenders. The most important thing is to study with an open mind and be willing to revise your understanding if necessary. How does it affect it you is the big question.

Responding to Changes in the Student Loan Industry, SimpleTuition.com Expands its Offerings to Become the Industry’s Most Comprehensive Resource for Student Loan Information

NEWTON, Mass. (BusinessWire EON/PRWEB ) May 15, 2007 -- With tremendous scrutiny on the student loan industry, SimpleTuition, Inc. is making it easier than ever for parents and students to make informed education borrowing decisions. Starting today, SimpleTuition has significantly expanded the list of lenders and loans available for consideration via its student loan comparison web site, SimpleTuition.com.

We are proud of our mission to be an independent and comprehensive source of student loan data - and with the addition of dozens of new loan products, we can add 'comprehensive' to that list of descriptors.
“The lesson from the recent student loan scandals should be that borrowers owe it to themselves to shop around,” explained Kevin Walker, co-founder and CEO of SimpleTuition. “We want SimpleTuition to be part of a borrower’s larger quest for college financing. Whether you select a loan via SimpleTuition or from another source, this is an important decision and you should do your homework.”

SimpleTuition is on its way to becoming the industry standard for evaluating student loan options. At SimpleTuition.com, parents and students can research more than 100 loan products from nearly 50 leading lenders. Borrowers can compare loan options on an ‘apples to apples’ basis, manipulate numbers, change assumptions, sort by loan attributes – all in real-time. To access the expanded list of loans, site visitors simply select “Expanded List” in the “View Loans From” feature at the top of the loan results page.

“For more than two years, SimpleTuition has been pioneering interactive tools to aid students and parents in understanding their student loan options,” added Walker. “We are proud of our mission to be an independent and comprehensive source of student loan data – and with the addition of dozens of new loan products, we can add ‘comprehensive’ to that list of descriptors.”

If you find yourself confused by what you've read to this point, don't despair. Everything should be crystal clear by the time you finish.

SimpleTuition is not a lender, and unlike other online student loan resources, SimpleTuition is not sponsored or owned by a single lender or financial services company. Similar to other comparison shopping and search sites, the company may receive a transaction or referral fee if any of its many Partner products is selected. SimpleTuition clearly discloses Partner products, and its expanded model includes dozens of non-partners for a wider choice. The service is free to users.

Colleges and universities can also work with SimpleTuition to present compliant and arm’s-length loan information to their families. Whether a school wants to present three loan options or two hundred and three, SimpleTuition can help.

Loan results can be sorted by monthly payment, total cost of loan, number of payments, first payment due date and APR – and results contain detailed information about loan pricing, borrower benefits and other attributes.

About SimpleTuition, Inc.

Founded in 2005, SimpleTuition is dedicated to helping students and parents make sense of education financing options. Recently featured as one of Fast Company’s Top 12 Web 2.0 sites, SimpleTuition offers the leading independent and interactive solution for researching and comparing private, PLUS, Stafford, GradPLUS and Federal Consolidation loans. SimpleTuition is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts and is funded by Atlas Venture, IDG Ventures Boston and North Hill Ventures. For more information, visit www.SimpleTuition.com.

It never hurts to be well-informed with the latest on what you should know about SimpleTuition and your student loan consolidation. Compare what you've learned here to future articles so that you can stay alert to changes in the area of what you should know about SimpleTuition and your student loan consolidation.

Student loan Scandal And You

2007-05-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

If you have even a passing interest in the topic of student loan, debt and consolidation, then you should take a look at the following information. This enlightening article presents some of the latest news on the subject of student loan, debt and consolidation.

Student loan scandal: Effects on consolidationDeciding whether to consolidate federal student loans is never easy. Here's what you need to know. By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer May 10 2007: 12:36 PM EDTNEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- It's a good thing you got that college education. You can put it to good use navigating the complex maze that is the student loan industry as you consider whether to consolidate your federal student loans.For those who have never done it, it's a question that comes up every year in anticipation of the rate change on July 1 of the variable federal student loans. Video More video =Two more lenders have agreed to abide by a code of conduct designed to protect students. (April 25) Play vide

But this year, there's a twist. News of student lenders offering perks and kickbacks to colleges and alumni associations to include them on preferred lender lists have, understandably, made consumers wary.But that actually may be one good thing to come out of the scandal. The advice about deciding whether and with whom to consolidate hasn't changed. It's just become even more relevant."The current scandal reinforces the need to be a savvy consumer and examine carefully any offer you receive no matter where it comes from," said Lauren Asher, associate director of Project Student Debt and the Institute for College Access and Success.Indeed, said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, "even when a school's preferred lender list is unbiased, you still have to identify which loans are best for you."The question of whether to consolidate your federal loans depends on the type of loans you have, their rate (variable or fixed) and your goal: Do you want to reduce the interest you pay long-term? Lower your monthly payment? Pay just one bill instead of several? Get better discounts?It also depends on whether you've already consolidated the loans in question before. By law, you may not consolidate the same loans twice.Here's what to consider if you have:Stafford loans If your Stafford loans were issued before July 1, 2006 they are variable-rate loans.What determines the change in the variable rate every July is the yield on the 3-month Treasury bill during the last T-bill auction in May. Currently, the yield is very close to where it was a year ago. So if the 3-month yield doesn't move much between now and the end of the month, payments on your Stafford loans are not likely to go up much, if at all, after July 1.So there's little reason to consolidate if your sole goal is to lock in a lower rate this year.

But there is one exception: if you're still in your so-called grace period, defined as up to six months after your graduation. That's because you still are enjoying the "in-school" rate, which is about 0.6 percentage points less than it will be when your grace period ends and you go into repayment. Consolidating before your grace period ends lets you to lock in that lower rate. Technically, you may lose out on some of your grace period because you will need to begin repayment within 60 days of consolidating. But if you apply for consolidation before July 1, a lot of lenders can set it up so that the clock on that 60 days doesn't start until close to the last two months of your grace period, Kantrowitz said.

Those of you not familiar with the latest on student loan, debt and consolidation now have at least a basic understanding. But there's more to come.

There's also little reason to consolidate if you want to lock in a lower rate and you got your Stafford loan after July 1, 2006. That's because those loans are fixed rate loans at 6.8 percent and won't change.Whether you have variable or fixed rate Staffords, however, you might consider consolidating if you want to reduce your monthly payments. You can do so by combining your loans into one loan and extending the repayment term. But by doing so you greatly increase the amount of interest you'll pay. By changing your repayment term from 10 years to 20, you'll cut your monthly payment by a third, but you'll double the amount of interest you pay long-term, Kantrowitz said.A 30-year term is even more expensive. Say you have $20,000 in fixed-rate Stafford loans. Asher notes that you'll pay $7,619 in interest on them over 10 years.

But if you consolidate and extend the repayment term to 30 years, you'll lower your monthly payment by $100 but you'll end up paying $26,935 in interest.Besides rates and monthly payments, weigh discount incentives when considering consolidation. Many lenders offer breaks if, say, you direct debit your payments or pay on-time for 36 consecutive months. Compare not only consolidation discounts offered by different lenders, compare them to the discounts you're currently enjoying. Sometimes, Kantrowitz said, "discounts for consolidated loans are inferior to those on unconsolidated loans."(Here's a good table for comparing specific discounts
http://www.finaid.org/loans/consolidationloandiscounts.phtml at FinAid.org. For a more general look at which discounts are more valuable than others http://projectonstudentdebt.org/loandiscounts.vp.html, see this table from the Project on Student Debt.)
Once you have loan consolidation offers in hand, you can see which offers the better deal by using FinAid.org's loan consolidation calculator http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanconsolidation.phtml.Perkins loans
These are fixed-rate federal loans at 5 percent. Student loan experts caution against consolidating them because doing so makes you ineligible for loan forgiveness programs. (
Here's more information on the types of loan forgiveness programs available

http://www.finaid.org/loans/forgiveness.phtml.) Private loans Private student loans are much costlier loans than those guaranteed by the federal government and borrowers don't enjoy the same protections as with federal student loans.
If you're among the minority of borrowers who have taken out private loans, and lenders send you offers to refinance your private loans, Asher's best advice: "Be even more careful (than you'd be with federal loan consolidation offers)." That's in part because the rates on these loans are based on your credit and can be as volatile as credit card rates.Here are good questions to ask before taking out or refinancing private student loans

http://projectonstudentdebt.org/private_loan_questions.vp.html. And for both federal and private student-loan related questions, Kantrowitz's FinAid.org student loan page http://finaid.org/loans/ is an excellent resource.
Is there really any information about student loan, debt and consolidation that is nonessential? We all see things from different angles, so something relatively insignificant to one may be crucial to another.

Presidents and the Student Loan Mess

2007-05-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

Presidents and the Student Loan Mess

By Robert Maurer

Presidents and financial aid directors are the two educational leaders on campus who are directly responsible for the success of the whole student, I used to tell audiences, with more than too much bravado.

I was trying to make a point. Every administrator needs to be involved to achieve institutional success, of course. But presidents and financial aid officers deal with a big picture stakes – success or failure of the student.

If the student fails, the institution fails. The president takes the blame.
If the institution fails the student, the student loan may not be repaid. The financial aid officer is on the line.

The latest public crisis in student loans reignites a question that has always haunted me: Why do college presidents too often leave the field of public debate when it comes to the specifics of student loans?

“Unfathomable”, “administrative nightmare” and a “policy backwater” are descriptions of the lending debate that would have encouraged CEO indifference to the politics of student loans in the past.
Collectively, financial aid officers, banks, student advocates and executives of national higher education organizations have controlled the options and the course of the nation’s college financing scheme — they were the ones with time to deal with the arcane.

Today, however, loans account for more than 30 percent of all payments for college tuition costs. Loan volume has more than doubled in a decade and is still growing. Private college loans, providing funds beyond the federal program limits, have increased by 734 percent in a decade, to $14 billion in the 2004-5 school year.
Can individual college presidents, with so much else on their plates, ignore the foundation, structure and details of the nation’s publicly financed student loan programs, and a thriving private sector alternative?
At their peril. And, at threat to the complicated, but working, system of higher education finance in America.

The latest blow-up is over lender payments to colleges and administrators who designate loan products on preferred lender lists. This is just a seasonal hurricane compared to the climate change in store for student lending over the next decade.
Essential public policy issues, emerging new private sector loan products and direct-to-the-student marketing techniques are going to change the way Americans afford to pay for college.

It can happen with or without college president resolve to assure that the interests of their students and institutions come first.
Off campus “student advocates” or “higher education policy experts” are gaming the current crisis politics to achieve long sought ideological change in these loan programs, which may or may not match a student and institutional requirements.
Among a host of issues, there are some that will directly redefine the nature and extent of student loan availability:

• The future of the bank-based Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and its sibling the Ford Direct Loan Program (DLP), the latter representing about 25 percent of all federally guaranteed student lending. Advocates for government-as-lender will use the latest crisis to limit the bank program and prefer expanded borrowing from the government, not the market place. Sustainability into all economic futures is the issue here. Will the government assure colleges’ access to loan-supported tuition financing under all circumstances? Student loans have become the third largest of the nation’s asset-backed securities markets — after credit cards and mortgages. The private marketplace has made lending at these levels possible. If not the private market place, can the government swallow the growing need for student loans to pay tuition into the future? At the levels of debt that future costs will require? College presidents might want to assure continued direct access to the market place, not exclusively through policy makers who have various and sometimes conflicting agendas.

• The role of state-based student financial aid agencies as the Congress and president impose a continued financial squeeze on FFELP administration costs, default prevention efforts and default collections revenues. It could mean the end to federally contracted, state-based guaranty agencies, the student financial aid agency in 27 states that are often the backbone of information and training to colleges, students and families. They are the sponsors of Internet-based, go-to-college and early career and college awareness programs. Many agencies also administer state grants and often the college savings program — assuring local policy continuity at the state level.

• Direct-to-consumer lending, bypassing the college financial aid office and making direct deals with students and parents, may end the current coordinated and guided match between grants, loans and college work — all without assuring that low-cost, federally subsidized loans are considered before more expensive private loans.

• Consolidation of lenders: Sallie Mae’s recently announced sale to two private financial services companies and two of the largest student loan banks (Bank of America and JPMorganChase) is another signal that market forces — not public interest — are driving the federally subsidized student loan business. While Sallie Mae holds 40 percent of total FFELP assets and services 10 million students and parents attending 5,600 colleges, new loan volume at growing value is originating not with banks, but with marketing companies that securitize their loans, selling them to American and foreign financial markets.

• Time to payoff: With the boom in student loan consolidations, the time to payoff of student debt has lengthened from the nominal 10 years to 15 and 20 and 30 years, in some cases. The cost of college is exploding exponentially after graduation by extending interest-bearing loan payments so far into the future. With a possible average payback time easily approaching 15 years for most future borrowers, is it not time to look at other alternatives? British and European loan programs delay repayments further into work life. ”Student securities” plans based on percentage of earnings are being pioneered by the Robertson Educational Empowerment Foundation, allowing a match between future income and debt. These and other innovations should be explored that avoid mortgaging student futures — drawing out loan payments and interest expense so far into their future College presidents most often represent the aspirations of their institutions, faculty, and their clients, the students. The president may be the only policy actor to assure that student loans — the essential, largest, and growing educational financial scheme of the 21st century — meets the needs of both the academy and student

Student and family interests should coincided with institutional success. I think only the CEO sees that conjunction and must speak out to assure that government, lenders and the entire higher education community meets the financial needs of both colleges and students into the future.

The times are changing. And college chief executives need to reenergize the student loan debate, assuring that the outcome serves the whole student and his or her institutions.Presidents and the Student Loan Mess

By Robert Maurer

Presidents and financial aid directors are the two educational leaders on campus who are directly responsible for the success of the whole student, I used to tell audiences, with more than too much bravado.
Related stories

* Mr. Cuomo Comes to Washington, April 26
* Preemptive Strike on Student Loans, April 25
* The Cuomo Effect Spreads, April 24
* Updates on the Loan Scandal, April 23
* The Battle Is Joined, April 20

I was trying to make a point. Every administrator needs to be involved to achieve institutional success, of course. But presidents and financial aid officers deal with a big picture stakes – success or failure of the student.

If the student fails, the institution fails. The president takes the blame.

If the institution fails the student, the student loan may not be repaid. The financial aid officer is on the line.

The latest public crisis in student loans reignites a question that has always haunted me: Why do college presidents too often leave the field of public debate when it comes to the specifics of student loans?

“Unfathomable”, “administrative nightmare” and a “policy backwater” are descriptions of the lending debate that would have encouraged CEO indifference to the politics of student loans in the past.

Collectively, financial aid officers, banks, student advocates and executives of national higher education organizations have controlled the options and the course of the nation’s college financing scheme — they were the ones with time to deal with the arcane.

Today, however, loans account for more than 30 percent of all payments for college tuition costs. Loan volume has more than doubled in a decade and is still growing. Private college loans, providing funds beyond the federal program limits, have increased by 734 percent in a decade, to $14 billion in the 2004-5 school year.

Can individual college presidents, with so much else on their plates, ignore the foundation, structure and details of the nation’s publicly financed student loan programs, and a thriving private sector alternative?

At their peril. And, at threat to the complicated, but working, system of higher education finance in America.

The latest blow-up is over lender payments to colleges and administrators who designate loan products on preferred lender lists. This is just a seasonal hurricane compared to the climate change in store for student lending over the next decade.

Essential public policy issues, emerging new private sector loan products and direct-to-the-student marketing techniques are going to change the way Americans afford to pay for college.

It can happen with or without college president resolve to assure that the interests of their students and institutions come first.

Off campus “student advocates” or “higher education policy experts” are gaming the current crisis politics to achieve long sought ideological change in these loan programs, which may or may not match a student and institutional requirements.

Among a host of issues, there are some that will directly redefine the nature and extent of student loan availability:

* The future of the bank-based Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and its sibling the Ford Direct Loan Program (DLP), the latter representing about 25 percent of all federally guaranteed student lending. Advocates for government-as-lender will use the latest crisis to limit the bank program and prefer expanded borrowing from the government, not the market place. Sustainability into all economic futures is the issue here. Will the government assure colleges’ access to loan-supported tuition financing under all circumstances? Student loans have become the third largest of the nation’s asset-backed securities markets — after credit cards and mortgages. The private marketplace has made lending at these levels possible. If not the private market place, can the government swallow the growing need for student loans to pay tuition into the future? At the levels of debt that future costs will require? College presidents might want to assure continued direct access to the market place, not exclusively through policy makers who have various and sometimes conflicting agendas.
* The role of state-based student financial aid agencies as the Congress and president impose a continued financial squeeze on FFELP administration costs, default prevention efforts and default collections revenues. It could mean the end to federally contracted, state-based guaranty agencies, the student financial aid agency in 27 states that are often the backbone of information and training to colleges, students and families. They are the sponsors of Internet-based, go-to-college and early career and college awareness programs. Many agencies also administer state grants and often the college savings program — assuring local policy continuity at the state level.
* Direct-to-consumer lending, bypassing the college financial aid office and making direct deals with students and parents, may end the current coordinated and guided match between grants, loans and college work — all without assuring that low-cost, federally subsidized loans are considered before more expensive private loans.
* Consolidation of lenders: Sallie Mae’s recently announced sale to two private financial services companies and two of the largest student loan banks (Bank of America and JPMorganChase) is another signal that market forces — not public interest — are driving the federally subsidized student loan business. While Sallie Mae holds 40 percent of total FFELP assets and services 10 million students and parents attending 5,600 colleges, new loan volume at growing value is originating not with banks, but with marketing companies that securitize their loans, selling them to American and foreign financial markets.
* Time to payoff: With the boom in student loan consolidations, the time to payoff of student debt has lengthened from the nominal 10 years to 15 and 20 and 30 years, in some cases. The cost of college is exploding exponentially after graduation by extending interest-bearing loan payments so far into the future. With a possible average payback time easily approaching 15 years for most future borrowers, is it not time to look at other alternatives? British and European loan programs delay repayments further into work life. ”Student securities” plans based on percentage of earnings are being pioneered by the Robertson Educational Empowerment Foundation, allowing a match between future income and debt. These and other innovations should be explored that avoid mortgaging student futures — drawing out loan payments and interest expense so far into their future

College presidents most often represent the aspirations of their institutions, faculty, and their clients, the students. The president may be the only policy actor to assure that student loans — the essential, largest, and growing educational financial scheme of the 21st century — meets the needs of both the academy and student

Student and family interests should coincided with institutional success. I think only the CEO sees that conjunction and must speak out to assure that government, lenders and the entire higher education community meets the financial needs of both colleges and students into the future.

The times are changing. And college chief executives need to reenergize the student loan debate, assuring that the outcome serves the whole student and his or her institutions.

Robert Maurer, formerly President of New York’s student aid agency, the Higher Education Services Corporation, is a writer and consultant on college financial aid and instructional technologies.

Robert Maurer, formerly President of New York’s student aid agency, the Higher Education Services Corporation, is a writer and consultant on college financial aid and instructional technologies.

Source: Inside Higher ED

Federal Student Loan Interest Rates Drop to Historic Lows; Southwest Student Services Corp. Offers Student Loan Consolidation Rates Below 1%

2007-03-08T01:57:00.000-08:00

Federal student loan interest rates will fall to record low levels on July 1, 2004. Rates for federal consolidation loans will continue to be well below 1% through incentives offered by Southwest Student Services Corp. (Southwest), one of the nation's leading education loan providers.

When annually adjusted interest rates on student loans drop again on July 1, Southwest will offer borrowers the lowest possible rates on federal consolidation loans, allowing them to save thousands of dollars and significantly lower their monthly payments.

Arizona or Florida borrowers who consolidate their student loans will receive an additional 2.25% discount after 24 months of on-time payments and for using auto-debit, resulting in a possible interest rate of 0.625%. All other borrowers are eligible to receive a 1.25% interest rate consolidation loan discount by using auto-debit after their first 24 on-time payments.

"This is great news for students who financed their education through federal student loans," said Southwest Chairman and CEO Vince Roig. "With our added discounts and benefits, we are offering some of the best rates in the country, which means that borrowers can make lower monthly payments and save large amounts of money on their student loans. For example, a borrower with a $25,000 consolidation loan could save nearly $6,000 over the life of the loan with these new rates.
College graduates can lock in very low rates by consolidating their loans during the grace period, when interest continues to accumulate even though at a lower rate than during the regular loan period. Parents who have secured federal PLUS loans to pay for their children's education will also benefit from lower interest rates, and they can also realize significant savings through PLUS loan consolidation. Loan consolidation applications sent in now will be processed to take advantage of the new, low-interest rates that take effect for 2004-2005.

The application process can be completed in just minutes online at www.sssc.com or by calling Southwest customer service at 800-367-2369. There are no fees, no service charges, no credit checks, and no prepayment penalties for consolidation loans.

About Southwest Student Services Corp.

Southwest Student Services Corp. (Southwest) serves schools and borrowers at the undergraduate, graduate, continuing education and professional school levels who seek financial aid counseling, student loan funding, loan origination, loan consolidation, and life-of-the-loan servicing. Southwest also creates turnkey School-as-Lender programs and partners with other lenders to facilitate loan and portfolio purchases, and customized referral programs.

Southwest is known nationally for providing innovative, money-saving benefits and exceeding customer expectations. For more than 22 years, Southwest and its affiliates have helped more than 1 million people reach their educational goals. Southwest has firmly established itself on the national stage, helping to shape the student loan industry through direct involvement in state, regional, and national financial aid and student loan organizations, and through affiliations and alliances with other leading corporations in the higher education finance industry.

Federal Student Loan Interest Rates Drop to Historic Lows; Southwest Student Services Corp. Offers Student Loan Consolidation Rates Below 1%

Student Loan Consolidation Success

2007-02-20T07:08:00.000-08:00

Student Loan Consolidation

As a student or the guardian of a student one of the most important relief you can receive is to conclude a Student Loan. But often the debt burden associated with student loans begins to way down on your income due to monthly repayments.

There are different student loans programs available, some of them out rightly exploitative. Student loan programs are either the Federal or the Private loans:

1. As the name implies, Federal loans are usually funded and administered through the Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid programs.

2. Private loans are offered by Banks and other private organizations for the benefit of Private students. The two most popular private loan programs are the Citibank student loans and the Sallie Mae Signature student loans.

Most student loans, whether Federal or Private could be secured or unsecured, but the private loan institutions do charge higher interest rates than Federal loans.

You are at liberty to apply for either Federal or private loans along with scholarships for the purpose of defraying the cost of your education if you meet the requisite criteria.

As you must have already considered from the above, it is better to first apply for Federal loans and when time comes for consolidating your student loans also consolidate your Federal loan firstly, before consolidating a private student loans debt.

Below are the 3 reasons why:

1. Federal loans attract lower interest rate and slight changes could occur every July 1st to, in most cases, lengthen repayment period to upwards of 30 years.
2. You have just one institution to which you make repayments each month.
3. Eligibility criteria are usually more favourable with the Federal loans.

Student loan consolations have pros and cons you must learn in order to be able to manage your student loans debt properly. There are a variety of options open to you for consolidating your student loans, if you have a number of them.

For instance, you need to compare interest rates before consolidating any student loans, be it Federal or private student loans, because interest rates have fallen. If not, you will have debt problem, which will work against your credit rating in the future

However, you can reduce you student loans debt by eliminating the principal balances or reducing the monthly payments. Yes, you can, because your loans repayment is tied to your income. Always be on the look out for student loans forgiveness, which is sometimes applied by some programs?

Neshah writes for your success.