Consolidation loan lenders
Top consolidation lenders ranked by total FY 2006 consolidation loan originations
Lender name # of loans Amt of loans ($)
Federal Direct Student Loan Program 1,169,110 $19,197,268,873
Sallie Mae 866,295 $19,841,423,841
Citibank 232,126 $4,843,119,089
Nelnet 198,624 $4,796,065,812
NextStudent 89,284 $3,320,024,025
JP Morgan Chase 115,777 $2,668,451,098
Goal Financial, LLC 111,426 $2,494,856,673
College Loan Corporation 75,360 $2,245,128,826
AES/PHEAA 166,730 $2,037,618,548
Student Loan Xpress 114,790 $1,880,997,383
Wachovia Education 80,174 $1,674,979,763
Student loan consolidation was big trend in student loans in 2009. With the cost of living rising at an alarming rate and unemployment numbers climbing, many people are looking for ways to make their money go further. If a former student has more than one outstanding student loan, consolidation can save them time and money, freeing up cash every month for the payment of other bills.
Student loan consolidation is a great debt management technique. If you are having trouble paying your monthly bills because of the current economic climate, you are not alone. Consolidating your student loans will likely lower your monthly payment.
Be advised, though. Loan consolidation is not a magical cure to your debt. You will likely end up paying more over the course of your loan because you will incur more interest over the long term. But if you simply can’t pay your bills and you are in danger of losing your home or defaulting on your loans, consider student loan consolidation. It will preserve your credit rating, which will likely save you from paying high interest rates on every other loan you will need in the course of your lifetime.
Consider your consolidation options carefully. Find the best interest rate possible by shopping around and asking for the best offer possible. Try to also ask your current lender if they will offer you any incentives to keep you from consolidating with another company. It’s a long shot, but you never know what a bank has up their sleeve to keep your business.
The student loan market is in a state of flux. Like every other lending industry, they have been heavily impacted by the credit crunch. Be a smart consumer when you are hunting for financing to achieve your academic goals.
Interest Rates
The interest rate on a consolidation loan is usually the weighted average of the interest rates on the loans being consolidated, rounded up to the nearest 1/8 of a percent and capped at 8.25%.
For example, suppose a student has just unsubsidized Stafford Loans originated on or after July 1, 2006. These loans have a fixed interest rate of 6.8%. When they are consolidated by themselves, the consolidation loan will have an interest rate of 6 and 7/8ths of a percent, or 6.875%. So the interest rate increases only slightly.
If the borrower has a mix of loans with different interest rates, the weighted average will be somewhere in between. For example, if the borrower has $5,000 of Perkins Loans (at 5.0%) and $10,000 of unsubsidized Stafford Loans (at 6.8%), the weighted average is
$5,000 * 5.0% + $10,000 * 6.8%
—————————— = 6.2%
$5,000 + $10,000
This weighted average, 6.2%, is then rounded up to the nearest 1/8th of a percent, yielding a consolidation loan interest rate of 6.25%.
Note that the weighted average does not fundamentally alter the underlying cost of the loan. It preserves the cost structure by including each interest rate to the extent that it applies to part of the overall loan balance. For example, the consolidation loan in the previous paragraph says that of the $15,000 consolidation loan balance, $5,000 will be at 5.0% and $10,000 at 6.8%, yielding an equivalent interest rate of 6.2%.
If you are consolidating loans with different interest rates, the weighted average interest rate will always be in between. Don’t be fooled if someone tries to suggest that this will save you money by getting you a lower interest rate. The interest rate may be lower than the highest of your interest rates, but it is also higher than the lowest of your interest rates. More importantly, the amount of interest you pay over the lifetime of the loan will be about the same.
(For the mathematically inclined, there is a slight difference due to the different shapes of amortization curves at each interest rate. In the example given above on a 10 year term, $10,000 at 6.8% has a monthly payment of $115.08 and total interest paid of $3,809.66, $5,000 at 5.0% has a monthly payment of $53.03 and total interest paid of $1,364.03. If you add these, you obtain a total monthly payment of $168.11 and a total interest paid of $5,173.69. Using the weighted average, $15,000 at 6.2% has a monthly payment of $168.04 and a total interest paid of $5,165.01. So using a weighted average yields a very small reduction in the monthly payment (in this case, 7 cents) and in the total interest paid ($8.68) due to a kind of triangle law. Of course, when you consolidate the interest rate is rounded up to the nearest 1/8th of a point, so $15,000 at 6.25% has monthly payments of $168.42 and total interest of $5,210.42, yielding a slight increase. So you pay a tiny bit of a premium for consolidation, due to the rounding up of the interest rate.
