Loan Consolidation and Deferment

[protonix]

Can we consolidate our private loans (Sallie Mae Sig Student Loan)? if so, can we defer these private loans throughout residency and fellowship?

My understanding of the federal loans is that: we can consolidate and defer. Correct me if Im wrong.

Any suggestions?

Anybody recommend any good banks/consolidation programs for private and federal loans?

[bones]

Contrary to popular myth, you can't consolidate your private signature loans, but you can consolidate the federal ones to 2.8%. The only catch is, that you need to make sure all of the loans you will consolidate are either in Deferment status or Grace status or you will get a 3% rate instead of 2.8%. You can defer both the signature and federal loans through residency, however, I plan on paying at least some on the signature loans since they have a higher rate and can't be consolidated. I'm consolidating my loans through Student Loan Consolidation Center: www.slccloans.com or 1-877-727-6888 BTW, since your grace period ends 6 moths after leaving school and you may have loans from undergrad that need to be deffered, I'd get working on this now!

[dr.smurf]

is this company better than say sallie mae? what kind of incentives does student loan consolidators offer?

[dar2drm]

I strongly recommend that you do NOT consolidate any student loans through CFS (Collegient Funding Services). I did my first undergrad loans through them and vowed to never do business with them again.

They send you a late notice every month BEFORE the money is due. I asked them why? They stated that is just their policy...they think it helps them get more of the payments in on time.

I asked if these notices were reported to credit agencies? They replied no. This was just to help them receive payments. Wrong answer. Though all of my payments were up to date, never any late, they had reported to all three credit agencies that I made late payments every month!!!! :evil: :evil: :evil: It is incredibly difficult to secure other methods of credit when someone keeps reporting things this way.

Long and short of it: I had to get another loan with higher interest rate to payoff the CFS loan in one lump to get my credit cleared up.

WARNING ALL, I hope this saves someone some future headaches.

[leofalcone]

I actually spoke with a Sallie Mae supervisor today and she told me there is no limit as far as deferment on the government loans but, to my surprise, she stated that the signature loans can only be deferred for a period of 24 months and a forbearance can only be granted for 12 months after that.....this was very disturbing to me.....I really hope she is wrong....I cannot imagine there are 4th year residents and beyond having to start paying back $100,000 signature loans. Anyone else heard this???

[leofalcone]

I need to respond to my last entry......actually, the documentation states deferment of signature loans is up to 48 months, not 24 as I stated. I either misunderstood what the sallie mae representative stated or she goofed, most likely the former.

[stephew]

you can however refinance private loans. There are sorts of consolidations for private loans with fed, but you DONT want to do that as you lose a locked in rate for the fed. And remember you can only consolidate once (for now anyway). The rates are low right now.

[protonix]

Yea Sallie Mae gave me the same response about 48 months for the Sig Student loans. To some of you guys who just graduated, what are you going to do? To those who have been through residency, what do you guys recommend we do about paying those loans back. I was thinking of defering the federal loans and making small payments on the private loans but I would also like to buy a house and don't know if I can afford payments on a house and big payments on those private loans. Thanks to the poster regarding the warning about CFS because I WAS considering them.