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Athazagoraphobia posted:I just got off the phone with Sallie Mae, but I'm more confused than I was beforehand. I recently converted all my loans (Federal Stafford Loan and DOE Loans) to automatic debit. I am a bit concerned, however, to find out that I am unable to change my payment date so that it is earlier than my due date each month. I don't have much to add beyond what's been said. My only additional comment is that I'm not sure why they wouldn't be able to change the due dates, but it's not unheard of. Dantu posted:I know the conventional wisdom for dealing with student loans is to focus on paying down private loan first, then federal loans. I would still recommend getting rid of the private loans ASAP. Since they're so much lower, you can get rid of them faster and then pay as much as possible toward the federal loans.
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Oct 9, 2013 02:49
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I'm currently in my fifth year (changed majors second year), and I've exhausted all of my state and federal government aid (already talked to financial services at my school to confirm this). Just today I tried to do a Federal PLUS loan on my parent's behalf, and applied to my own personal private loan, and both were denied due to poor credit. I'll need about a $10,000 private loan to finish out this semester and Spring 2014. If I can't find a cosigner...do I even have any options?
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Oct 10, 2013 22:16
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In terms of federal and private loans, unfortunately no. You could look into other private lenders, or even peer-to-peer lending, but those would still be based on credit. You might want to schedule an appointment with a financial aid advisor to just discuss any other options the school might have.
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Oct 11, 2013 14:30
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My consolidation went through, and my loans were assigned to SallieMae for servicing. Despite selecting the IBR, they have me in standard repay and are expecting $1200 in 30 days 
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Oct 11, 2013 17:40
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Dantu posted:My consolidation went through, and my loans were assigned to SallieMae for servicing. Despite selecting the IBR, they have me in standard repay and are expecting $1200 in 30 days Contact their Office of the Customer Advocate to get it straightened out: https://www.salliemae.com/about/who-we-are/leadership/advocate/
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Oct 11, 2013 19:49
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My loans are going to enter repayment in November, so I have some questions. I applied for IBR through StudentLoan.gov after I was redirected there from Nelnet. Do I also have to go through the process again for my loan being serviced by Sallie Mae? Sallie Mae is also listed as one of the servicers I needed to send proof of income from that first application. I also want to leave myself open to Public Service Loan Forgiveness. I think I have two FFEL loans since they were disbursed in 2009, one is subsidized and the other unsubsidized. As I understand, PSLF is only available for Direct Loans. Would I lose out on the government paying for unpaid interest on my subsidized loan in IBR if I consolidate those two? Would I need to apply for IBR separately for that Consolidated Loan or would I be automatically enrolled for it if I'm enrolled for IBR for the unconsolidated loans? Is there a downside to consolidating? I also have ~$30k in Perkins and Health Professions Student Loans with a 5% interest rate and subsidized interest during the grace period. They don't enter repayment until February and May 2014, respectively. My one loan being serviced by Sallie Mae has a 1.75% rate right now since it was an older loan with a variable interest rate. What are the pros and cons of lumping these loans together into a Direct Consolidation Loan when the HPSL loans are about to enter repayment? I've always heard people say that you should never consolidate Perkins Loans, so what benefits would I be losing out on? I'm not dead set on PSLF, but it's something I would consider depending on what kind of job I find after I complete my residency program next year.
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Oct 12, 2013 00:55
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e: figured this out!
Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Oct 16, 2013 |
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Oct 15, 2013 19:50
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Ancillary Character posted:My loans are going to enter repayment in November, so I have some questions. I applied for IBR through StudentLoan.gov after I was redirected there from Nelnet. Do I also have to go through the process again for my loan being serviced by Sallie Mae? Sallie Mae is also listed as one of the servicers I needed to send proof of income from that first application. Paging Effexxor! I am honestly not sure about IBR guidelines, I haven't worked in the servicing aspect in long enough that I'm unfamiliar with the program. Hopefully Effexxor still checks the thread. If not, be sure to call up your servicer and discuss IBR with then. As for consolidating Perkins, some schools have repayment incentives and forgiveness programs that would be lost if you consolidated the loan with your others. Call the servicer for your Perkins and ask about any programs that might be available for you. Srebrenica Surprise posted:e: figured this out! Glad to hear it!
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Oct 16, 2013 21:04
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My wife has an unsubsidized student loan through Sallie Mae that's in deferment since she is in school. If I make a payment on the loan before it comes out of deferment, is the payment applied to the interest on the loan? I'd like to take as much advantage of the student loan interest deduction as possible, so I'd like to pay down the interest before it's capitalized.
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Oct 19, 2013 00:44
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Initio posted:My wife has an unsubsidized student loan through Sallie Mae that's in deferment since she is in school. If I make a payment on the loan before it comes out of deferment, is the payment applied to the interest on the loan? I'd like to take as much advantage of the student loan interest deduction as possible, so I'd like to pay down the interest before it's capitalized. All payments are applied to interest first, principal second. So any payment you make that's not over the interest due as of that day will hit the interest alone. Definitely start this practice! Y'all will save money in the long run!
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Oct 19, 2013 17:55
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Hi, I'm a teacher in a Title-1 school. This is my first year teaching and my loan payments start next month. However, it looks like they're going to be pretty massive. I've got $47,751 principal with $4,851.49 in accrued interest. Thanks to recent hardships, I'm already at a point where I'm working paycheck to paycheck. I know that there ARE options to people in my position (public service in a Title-1 school, hardships, etc) but I'm not entirely sure what they are and what's the best one for me. Any help? I'm a bit clueless and don't want to be slammed with what looks like might be around $500 or more per month.
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Oct 20, 2013 00:25
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Little Mac posted:Hi, I'm a teacher in a Title-1 school. This is my first year teaching and my loan payments start next month. However, it looks like they're going to be pretty massive. I've got $47,751 principal with $4,851.49 in accrued interest. Thanks to recent hardships, I'm already at a point where I'm working paycheck to paycheck. I know that there ARE options to people in my position (public service in a Title-1 school, hardships, etc) but I'm not entirely sure what they are and what's the best one for me. Are they federal loans or private loans?
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Oct 20, 2013 02:58
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EugeneJ posted:Are they federal loans or private loans? Federal Stafford loans serviced via FedLoan Servicing.
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Oct 20, 2013 05:32
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There is a forbearance specifically related to the teacher loan forgiveness program, but qualifications can be tricky. Honestly, you're probably best getting onto IBR. Chances are your payments will be either manageable or 0 (yes really), and you can just pay what you can when you have some spare cash without wasting any forbearance/deferment time. If you can just the TLF forbearance though, that's a good idea too. Call up Fedloans and see what you can qualify for! Of note, in either scenario you will be accruing interest. Forgiveness is great, but don't bank on that as a guarantee, juuuuust in case. Pay if you can, even if it's tiny amounts.
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Oct 20, 2013 05:42
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Wiggy Marie posted:There is a forbearance specifically related to the teacher loan forgiveness program, but qualifications can be tricky. Honestly, you're probably best getting onto IBR. Chances are your payments will be either manageable or 0 (yes really), and you can just pay what you can when you have some spare cash without wasting any forbearance/deferment time. If you can just the TLF forbearance though, that's a good idea too. Call up Fedloans and see what you can qualify for! What is IBR?
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Oct 20, 2013 15:35
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Little Mac posted:Hi, I'm a teacher in a Title-1 school. This is my first year teaching and my loan payments start next month. However, it looks like they're going to be pretty massive. I've got $47,751 principal with $4,851.49 in accrued interest. Thanks to recent hardships, I'm already at a point where I'm working paycheck to paycheck. I know that there ARE options to people in my position (public service in a Title-1 school, hardships, etc) but I'm not entirely sure what they are and what's the best one for me. Depending on what subject you teach you can get up to 15,700 in loan forgiveness AFTER you teach in a Title 1 school for five years. Science, Math, and Special Ed get 15,700 and all other subjects get 5,700. You must be considered Highly Qualified for your position. I just received this Loan Forgiveness myself this summer. I did do the Forebearance during the five years, but only because I had less than 15,700 out in loans - so the Forgiveness covered the entirety. I don't believe the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program would effect you taking advantage of any other ways of lowering your payments, though! So look into those too. If you have any other questions about Teacher Loan Forgiveness, feel free to ask me!
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Oct 21, 2013 14:48
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I'm sorry for all these terribly stupid questions, but I'm just now starting to look at financing my graduate school, starting in the spring. I have enough money saved and in an account my parents kept since I was born for two semesters (if I live very frugally), and I'm not sure how long I'll need to be in graduate school yet, as the program length changes depending on how many hours you take. Here's my questions. 1) As I'm starting in the spring, can I not file a FAFSA for a school year starting in January? Do I need to wait until the 2014-2015 school year to receive federal aid? 2) I'm going to be a special education teacher; how do I make sure I can get loan forgiveness?
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Oct 21, 2013 19:53
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Little Mac posted:What is IBR? Sorry about that! IBR stands for "imcome-based repayment," and the title is a literal description. They'll take your income (based on tax filing) and calculate your payments to be a certain percentage of your income. spinst, thank you for your input! Little Mac, you definitely want to chat spinst up! Hopefully you can take advantage of this program. Pinball posted:1) As I'm starting in the spring, can I not file a FAFSA for a school year starting in January? Do I need to wait until the 2014-2015 school year to receive federal aid? No worries about questions! I would rather you ask than go clueless! You can file the FAFSA for 13-14 right now through next year. You cannot file for 14-15 until January 1st, 2014, but you can file immediately on that day! I generally recommend waiting a little bit before filing because it tends to be glitchy for about a month. As for the aid, you can't file for 14-15 and receive aid early, the earliest you can receive funds for that time frame is when the school starts their own 14-15 aid year. You can currently file for 13-14 and receive funds in the Spring if you start in January 2014, though. So definitely file your 13-14 FAFSA ASAP and have it sent to your school! For forgiveness, spinst is once again a great resource since he/she took advantage of the program. In addition, you'll probably qualify for full forgiveness under the public service loan forgiveness, by virtue of what you'll be doing. Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 22, 2013 01:59
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I've been putting money in my savings account while living at home, and am about $7,000 away from having enough to pay it off. I owe 33,000 total, and since I'm tired of my IBR payments going solely to interest, I just paid a large chunk payment of $20,000 today so that my IBR payments will actually go mostly towards the principal. I had planned on saving all my money and paying it off in one large chunk this winter, but that just seemed asinine. Now I have about $6,000 in savings. Hope I don't need a car anytime soon. 
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Oct 23, 2013 22:19
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In spring of 2012 I signed a Leave of Absence form in university A and I went and am completing a degree at community college B. I am about to complete my degree and am on track of graduating next spring. Besides this I am on track on transfering to a normal 4 year institution C. College C opens up applications for fall 2014 next January and they need all my transcripts of wherever I've been to, in this case they need transcripts of institution A and B. The problem is that I am still in 'Leave of Absence' in institution A. If I were to complete the withdrawal process in institution A, will my Stafford loans go into repayment (I understand there's the 6 month grace period). What about their exit counseling? My reasoning is that they won't because I am still a full time student in institution B and eventually institution C. Can someone please clarify this? Thanks.
Muffin Top fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Oct 24, 2013 |
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Oct 24, 2013 02:05
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Muffin Top posted:In spring of 2012 I signed a Leave of Absence form in university A and I went and am completing a degree at community college B. I am about to complete my degree and am on track of graduating next spring. Besides this I am on track on transfering to a normal 4 year institution C. College C opens up applications for fall 2014 next January and they need all my transcripts of wherever I've been to, in this case they need transcripts of institution A and B. The problem is that I am still in 'Leave of Absence' in institution A. If I were to complete the withdrawal process in institution A, will my Stafford loans go into repayment (I understand there's the 6 month grace period). What about their exit counseling? My reasoning is that they won't because I am still a full time student in institution B and eventually institution C. Can someone please clarify this? Thanks. As long as at least one university reports you as enrolled at least half-time, your in-school status isn't affected. You might need to fill out the In-School Deferment form if they don't report to the National Student Clearinghouse, but chances are they do. You can actually Google that site and pull up your enrollment records to see! Lee Harvey Oswald posted:I've been putting money in my savings account while living at home, and am about $7,000 away from having enough to pay it off. I owe 33,000 total, and since I'm tired of my IBR payments going solely to interest, I just paid a large chunk payment of $20,000 today so that my IBR payments will actually go mostly towards the principal. I had planned on saving all my money and paying it off in one large chunk this winter, but that just seemed asinine. Now I have about $6,000 in savings. As much as it sucks to let a large chunk of change go, that's awesome and a huge congratulations! Just think, this time next year you can be putting all that spare cash into a savings/whatever instead of your loans!
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Oct 24, 2013 02:36
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Lee Harvey Oswald posted:I've been putting money in my savings account while living at home, and am about $7,000 away from having enough to pay it off. I owe 33,000 total, and since I'm tired of my IBR payments going solely to interest, I just paid a large chunk payment of $20,000 today so that my IBR payments will actually go mostly towards the principal. I had planned on saving all my money and paying it off in one large chunk this winter, but that just seemed asinine. Now I have about $6,000 in savings. I am so jealous of/happy for you! My fiance and I are trying to plan ahead for paying off our student loans, but everything hinges on us both having good jobs outside of school, which is poo poo.
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Oct 24, 2013 02:42
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Haymaker_Betty posted:I am so jealous of/happy for you! My fiance and I are trying to plan ahead for paying off our student loans, but everything hinges on us both having good jobs outside of school, which is poo poo. Don't get too down. My wife had a hard time with work out of school in 08 which put us further behind (not to mention grad school on top of that...). She worked at a doctors office and made $15K a year at first. 5 years later and she has changed jobs 3 times and almost quadrupled her income.
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Oct 24, 2013 03:15
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Pinball posted:I'm sorry for all these terribly stupid questions, but I'm just now starting to look at financing my graduate school, starting in the spring. I have enough money saved and in an account my parents kept since I was born for two semesters (if I live very frugally), and I'm not sure how long I'll need to be in graduate school yet, as the program length changes depending on how many hours you take. Here's my questions. What up, Special Ed. buddy. Note this process only applies to Direct Subsidized Loans, Direct Unsubsidized Loans, Subsidized Federal Stafford Loans, and Unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loans. There is a different process for Perkins loans I am not familiar with. To qualify for the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program, you need to: 1. Be Highly Qualified for the position you teach in. 2. Teach in a Title 1 school. There is an online database here: https://www.tcli.ed.gov/CBSWebApp/tcli/TCLIPubSchoolSearch.jsp 3. Teach for five consecutive years. Now, you don't have to teach in the SAME Title 1 school all five years, but all five years must be done in Title 1 Schools. 4. Once that's done, you fill out a simple one page application, have the administrator in your building sign it to verify you were there, and mail it to your loan holder. It's seriously that simple. Now, if you're like me and had less than $15,700 out in loans... the Loan Forgiveness will wipe out all of it. Thus, you can ask for deferments so that you don't have to make payments until the time you qualify. Again, it's another simple one page form, but you do have to send in the request every year as they will only grant one year of forbearance at a time. http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/charts/teacher <-- Good resource. Hope this helps. 
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Oct 24, 2013 14:28
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Yeah, I feel pretty good about it. Now I'm trying to choose a retirement option. 
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Oct 24, 2013 16:35
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I'm lost about what to do in my current situation. I'm older than 30, work full time, am married with two kids and my latest tax return is based on my wife not working for that year. I'm also a student that is 6 classes away from my undergraduate degree, and my tuition reimbursement for the first two semesters of 2014 has been used up due to increased education costs. Up until now, I've just relied on the tuition reimbursement and out of pocket payments but for Spring and Summer 2014, that isn't going to work. I'm looking at $10,000 or so to complete Spring and Summer and Fall 2014 can go against 2015's tuition reimbursement amount. I have two consolidated loans from previous school and my wife's: Unsub Spousal Consol Loan Subsidized Spousal Consol Loan I'd really prefer to not go into more debt but I'm not sure what to do in this case as I can't easily find any grants that would apply to me. If I do have to go into debt, what kind of loan should I be looking at? I don't want to borrow against my 401k unless its the last option.
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Oct 25, 2013 15:47
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Oh my god I want to throttle someone at Sallie Mae. I put my loans with them back on auto-debit because I figured I'd let the auto-payments go through and then add some more to my smaller loan at the end of the month once I knew how much extra money I can throw at it. They literally won't let you do that without mailing them a check with a written letter saying to put this entire payment towards X loan. Any online payment always goes towards the next due payment on all your loans and then lets you distribute the overage however you want. They have no way whatsoever to do a payment only towards one loan in a group and not towards all of them. 
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Oct 25, 2013 19:46
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One of many reasons why I paid off my Sallie Mae debt first even though it was not the lowest interest rate. I've never regretted that decision. Maybe that's their strategy all along, be so awful that we prioritize their payments to make it stop.
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Oct 25, 2013 19:49
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Uziel posted:If I do have to go into debt, what kind of loan should I be looking at? I don't want to borrow against my 401k unless its the last option. As an undergrad, unfortunately our only federal loan options are the federal sub and unsub loans. Perkins loans are offered by the school at their own discretion, so you can't ask for one later. You'll need to look into private loans (  ). simpletuition.com is a great website for shopping. Pay very close attention to the deferment time and interest payments during deferments - some have these, some don't. Be careful!!! 100 HOGS AGREE posted:Oh my god I want to throttle someone at Sallie Mae. I put my loans with them back on auto-debit because I figured I'd let the auto-payments go through and then add some more to my smaller loan at the end of the month once I knew how much extra money I can throw at it. Our system works this way too, and we use the same one as SLMA. I'm not sure why the system is like this, it literally "groups" the loans and there's not a way for the servicer to change it. It's honest to goodness a system limitation, and I could not begin to tell you why it is. antiga posted:One of many reasons why I paid off my Sallie Mae debt first even though it was not the lowest interest rate. I've never regretted that decision. It's possible!
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Oct 25, 2013 21:31
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Never mind my question. Did some math to figure out my answer.
im an orange fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Oct 26, 2013 |
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Oct 26, 2013 00:18
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I have not had that issue with sallie Mae. Is it just if you have auto debit setup? I always just pay each month and pick where I want the extra to go to.
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Oct 26, 2013 03:05
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im an orange posted:Never mind my question. Did some math to figure out my answer. If you want to double-check your numbers, this is the website I use when I want to figure out debt and interest payments over a period of time: http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx spwrozek posted:I have not had that issue with sallie Mae. Is it just if you have auto debit setup? Do you do this through the online system? Any chance of screenshots of how to do it, with pertinent information blocked out?
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Oct 26, 2013 03:08
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I pay my bills on the first so I will pull some screen shots when I do it next weekend. Re reading what was posted it sounds like it makes you pay your payment balance first on all your loans and then divide it out. Which I think makes sense since if you owe a payment you need to make it. Maybe I am not understanding. spwrozek fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Oct 26, 2013 |
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Oct 26, 2013 03:18
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spwrozek posted:I pay my bills on the first so I will pull some screen shots when I do it next weekend. There's no option to tell them "no, this isn't for my next due payment, just apply all this to one of my loans." So, say my loan autopays on October first and I have two loans each with a $50 minimum payment. 100 bucks is debited from my account on the first. If on Oct 15th I realize "oh I need to go slam 400 extra bucks on the loan I've been working on" and go may a payment, Sallie Mae is like "Oh November's payment! Let me take 50 bucks out for each loan. Now where do you want the other 300 bucks to go?" 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 14:04
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:No it works exactly how you're saying. The problem is when you try to make a second (extra) payment in a month. The second acts exactly like any other payment, since it is expecting that you want to pay your next due payment, so it first puts minimum payments towards all your loans and then asks you to distribute the overage.
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Oct 29, 2013 03:29
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Out of curiosity- what are the options for students going abroad for graduate studies but to schools not on the Fafsa list? Seems like the only thing that would work are personal loans, possibly with parents co-signed, but as I have no (current) income and no collateral my local people at Wells Fargo aren't able to extend much more than 5-8k. Have tried going through several of the links in OP, as well as Sallie Mae's site, and unfortunately seems like my school isn't on any of the lists (which is funny, because it's accrediting institute is). Any help/advice on what my next options might be?
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Oct 29, 2013 20:09
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FelixReynolds posted:Out of curiosity- what are the options for students going abroad for graduate studies but to schools not on the Fafsa list? Seems like the only thing that would work are personal loans, possibly with parents co-signed, but as I have no (current) income and no collateral my local people at Wells Fargo aren't able to extend much more than 5-8k. Have you talked to the FA office of the school itself? Sometimes they have to do everything manually if they're accredited but not on the list. If they're not ghost accredited, then you'll have to find private loans to help out
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Oct 30, 2013 02:27
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I just need to complain for a minute. Look at this clusterfuck of a home page: All I want to do is log in. I know it's the big orange button in the middle. The problem is everything on that page stands out and screams for attention. Tone that poo poo down. After writing this post I'm finally going to get around to changing my bookmark to the login page. E: I will give them a bit of credit, but it could have been just dumb luck. When my loans were transfered to edfinancial, the grouping actually made sense, aligning with interest rates. I paid off my highest group earlier this year, will pay off my next highest group in December, and will pay off the last group next year. 
Guy Axlerod fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 31, 2013 16:47
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Dantu posted:My consolidation went through, and my loans were assigned to SallieMae for servicing. Despite selecting the IBR, they have me in standard repay and are expecting $1200 in 30 days
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Nov 1, 2013 01:34
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Your loans don't just become private because Sallie Mae is the servicer... One of my loans has been sold/changed providers 3 times and everythign stays the same.
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Nov 1, 2013 04:29
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