10 student loan companies called Friday. Help!

[floridafam]

We are being BOMBARDED with calls from student loan companies about consolidating our student loans.

We already consolidated once a few years ago and locked in an interest rate.

One company, Academic Funding, said they could lower our interest rate and they participate with Upromise, which is nice.

They can only see if we qualify by us giving them DH's social security number. NO WAY!

They did give me the address for their website and we can apply on there.

Has anyone consolidated twice? Any details you can provide would be really helpful.

 

[dennis99ss]

I did once, a long time ago. I thought you could only do it once. If not, I should look into it as rates are lower today than what I have

 

[lfeikert]

I had consolidated several years ago after I completed my undergrad degree. Last summer I was getting bombarded with calls, too, and finally agreed to let one company, AES, (I can't remember exactly what it stands for!) run all the figures and see what it would be. It was a better deal at a lower rate with an incentive of about .5% deduction in the rate if you make on-time payments for 12 consecutive months or something like that. I'm glad we did it. So, yes, you can consolidate more than once especially if you did it through the governemnt with DirectLoans. From what my new company told me, they don't give you the lowest rates or the incentives. I did have a new loan for my master's program though when I consolidated the second time so maybe that made the difference. Really, though, I don't think there is any limit on how often you can consolidate. I'm not good with this kind of thing though so maybe I'm wrong

 

[floridafam]

Thank you for the responses.

Direct Loans is who we have now. We locked in way back when it was 8%.

All of the new companies calling are telling us we can do it more than once as long as it is with a different company.

I guess we'll call them back and see what they say.

 

[JimB.]

Why are they calling?

Have you joined the National "Do Not Call" registry?

Also, be aware of hidden costs in refinancing a loan. These companies are not offering it out of the goodness of their heart, they are doing it to make a buck off of you.

Compare the length of loan remaining +interest rate difference +attached fees to see if it is worthwhile.