<p>I have these options: college board, edamerica, sallie mae education trust (which i'm leaning towards), citibank, chase education finance, wachovia, wells fargo, and bank of america. Can anyone tell me if they've had these lenders before and have loved/hated them? Thanks!</p>
<p>As a student with loans through Sallie Mae and as a Financial Aid Counselor, I would advise you to stay away from Sallie Mae. On a personal level, they have made my loan repayment a living nightmare, and three months into repayment, I have already lost my benefits because they were slow in processing my online payment. Also, Sallie Mae loves to spam the heck out of yoru email, offering you everything under the sun. On a professional level, many of the students I have dealt with over the years have thoroughly complained about the lack of customer service with Sallie Mae.</p>
<p>On a personal level, I prefer EdAmerica, and will be taking my next set of loans out with them. I like the fact that EdAmerica doesn't sell your loans to an outside servicer. I also like the fact that EdAmerica allows a student to re-earn their repayment benefits. On a professional level, having toured their facility and speaking with their staff, I would rate their customer service as a perfect 10. </p>
<p>Wachovia and Bank of America are also great lenders, with decent (maybe about a 7 - 8) customer service.</p>
<p>Primarily, you want to examine the repayment benefits they are offering and see which one you will most likely be able to receive.</p>
<p>Ok thats a lot of help! I'm considering edamerica and college board now.</p>
<p>Wish I could be more helpful....but us FAA's have to walk a very fine line now....don't want the Federal Govt thinking any lender has given me inducements for their business!</p>
<p>haha, thats ok. :D I'm gonna go with edamerica, i like thier reduction rate and customer service is a big deal to me. I havent had any contact with them yet, but your suggestion definitely helped make the final decision. Thanks!</p>
<p>what are the major differences between edamerica and bank of america (if any)? My family uses bank of america, if that makes any difference... Thanks!</p>
<p>Well they both have 0% origination/federal default fees. From what I can see, bank of america goes through sallie mae to do the actual stafford loan. EdAmerica does the loaning itself. Bank of America's benefits offer a 3% principal balance reduction if you make your first 36 payments on time. They also offer a .25% interest rate deduction if your loan payments are deducted directly from your savings/checking account. EdAmerica's benefits offer a 4% savings after the first 33 on-time payments. I hope that helps!</p>
<p>I don't have the most current benefits for Bank of America, as their Rep hasn't sent us anything in quite some time...but I do have the latest benefits for Edamerica, as our Rep has recently visited to provide us with updates.</p>
<p>• 1% interest rate reduction at graduation
• .25% interest rate reduction for auto-debit
• 1% rebate after first 12 on-time payments
• 1% rebate after next 12 on-time payments
• Benefit repair option after 24 months of on-time payments</p>
<p>My daughter was offered a direct loan (unsubsidized) at UC Berkeley. Is a direct loan thru the university better than getting one through a bank or other financial institution? </p>
<p>We were also offered a direct PLUS loan, but we think we might be better off getting an equity loan on our home so that we can write off the interest.</p>
<p>Any comments will be much appreciated.</p>