<p>Posting in this section of CC because of more traffic. :)</p>
<p>D graduated in May 11 - over the weekend the loan letters started flowing in. Of course, we expected them soon. </p>
<p>First payments are due Jan. 2012. This is a whole new world for us. Neither H or I had any student loans. D has some $$$ saved to pay off a decent portion of the loans. Just looking for any advice in terms of paying off loans early (can only be a good thing, right?), if paying these loans has to be reported on taxes or anything like that.</p>
<p>Funny how even though you know the loans are "there" over the 4 years, it's still a sucky feeling when you "see" that now it's payback time!</p>
<p>(fortunately D was able to save some $$$ - she only took subsidized Staffords - and she started working right after graduation so has been able to stabilize her budget in general to prepare for loan payments - well, as much as you ever/can PREPARE for payments!)</p>
<p>My May grad got his loan mail on Saturday. They had mailed information back in early June so he wasn’t shocked. Plus Dear Mom has been reminding him that he needs to put aside some of his paycheck to have a cushion to make his payments if his work dries up.</p>
<p>I am going to suggest automatic payment from his checking. My S also has some saved cash and is considering paying down the loan. His question for us is how much to pay down and how much of his savings to keep in order to have an emergency fund. His hours at work vary depending on how much work his employer has so he needs to keep some reserve for months when he doesn’t earn enough to make his payment plus live.</p>
<p>In these economic times, I’d have more money in the emergency fund than less. Why not wait to pay down the loan until job and job hours solidify?</p>
<p>DS graduated may11 also, and his loans are due November. (Not sure why the op’s dd’s loans aren’t due until January?). I snuck a peek at the federal loan website- lord what a mess! and he has 3 different years of loans all with different interest amounts, so will probably want to consolidate them. any idea how difficult that is to do?</p>
<p>If her job seems solid, she has a reasonable emergency fund, and she has a reasonable monthly budget plan, then she should consider paying them down at an accelerated rate to get them out of the way. They’ll always be liabilities when she’s applying for car loans and home loans and it’ll always be hanging over her head as yet another bill to pay off every month. If she can manage it she should try to get them paid off before she starts running into the other big financial commitments of house, wedding, kids, and the like.</p>
<p>We have 3 different interest rates - so they can be consolidated? (do we want to do that?) And how do we do it???</p>
<p>Anxious, the language on the letter says “Your repayment period for the loans above officially begins on 11/21/11. Your first payment is due 1/20/12”.</p>
<p>Consolidating the loans can be good if the new loan’s interest rate is comparatively better but another way to handle it is to make the ‘regular’ payment on the lower interest loans and accelerate the payoff of the loan with the highest interest. When that’s paid off then accelerate it for the one with the next highest rate.</p>
<p>The other advantage to paying them off early is a lifestyle one of carrying as little debt through life as is reasonable. It’s a good habit to get into.</p>
<p>S’s letter states it is entering repayment on Dec 28th. The first payment is due 1/20/12.
Maybe it has something to do with your official date of leaving school. My S took a summer school class that ended beginning of June. The loan docs have his date of separation as 6/10. If your S graduated in May maybe it is due to start repayment a month earlier.
Does anyone know if you can set up the autopay online? The brochure I am looking at that came with the loan says you must fill out the form and mail it in along with a blank check with VOID written on it or a deposit slip for a savings account.</p>
<p>DS, May 11 grad, has loans from two different lenders.
He went to the two websites and set up auto debit from his checking monthly there.
He received a very small interest reduction.
It did take about 6 weeks for the autodebit to kick in.</p>
<p>I know this is a bit off topic. Neighbor’s daughter graduated in May with a doctorate in veterinary medicine. She moved back home. According to her mother, her daughter has not shown much motivation to go out and get a job. Turns out she doesn’t want to work as a vet. Mom says she owes around $200K for 8 years of college. Her daughter needs to start paying her student loans soon. But without a job, how can she do that? Can a person defer their student loans if they are unemployed? I can’t even imagine how much the monthly payment would be on a $200K loan!!</p>
<p>When I got out of college, my loan statements came to my address, and I simply began paying the monthly amount, as my “exit interview” with the loan person at my college had helped me understand would happen. My parents weren’t involved AT ALL. How do all you parents have your child’s financial info about the loan the “child” signed for? As a young adult, living on my own, working, etc, I would have been “ticked” if my parents had been opening my mail and babying me.</p>
<p>Hopefully the mom didn’t have to cosign for these! I think forbearance is a temporary option but the interest continues to accumulate and she should be very careful about this. There are certain repayment plans such as IBR/ICR for federal loans, but she obviously has other loans as well. She really needs to wake up and make a plan now or things could get ugly!</p>
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<p>teachandmom, some parents pay their kids student loans and just used the federal loans as they had more favorable rates than parent loans. My kids have Stafford loans that I only pay the interest charges on while they are in school and they repay the balance. I have full access to much of their financial info, including bank accounts and student loans, simply because they gave it to me. It’s not that they don’t understand and accept responsibility for their bills, but they’re more comfortable knowing that they have someone else looking out for them while they’re learning the process. I don’t remind, nag, pay, or monitor other accounts but we’ve heard enough stories about student loan snafus that it’s worth having a second set of eyes on. I keep copies of their loan agreements, statements, passwords, etc. for them in case their copies are lost in a move…which is probably inevitable.</p>
<p>Teachandmom, the address on the loan is the home address when D applied for the loans first time as a freshman - which is our home. Those don’t get changed (unless you ask for that I suppose). Nothing more to it than that. We are not babying her, but since she isn’t living at this address now, we let her know when any mail happens to come for her and she lets us know if we should open it. The paying part will be her responsibility.</p>