Private Student Loans

<p>I need to try and figure out the interest rate on 10 year private student loans but i can't seem to find that. Does anyone know what it would generally be?</p>

<p>i am looking for it too</p>

<p>Interest rates on private loans are generally credit based - meaning the rate you will be offered will be based on (1) your credit score (the higher the score the lower the rate - the lower the score the higher the rate - I would venture to guess you are looking at 9% or more on these loans).</p>

<p>On top of that the rate you are offered will be affected by (1) are you going to start making payments right away or (2) are you going to defer your payments until you get out of school?</p>

<p>I have only seen these loans offer variable rates so they can actually change the rate on your anytime they want.</p>

<p>Before you head to the private loan make sure you have at least considered and hopefully used up your federal loan options, Stafford Student Loan, parent PLUS loan, and the new GradPlus loan. The federal loans will be offering fixed rates as of July - these rates are going up in July and are not as attractive as they have been but all the benefits you get as a result of using the federal loan program far outweigh what you go thru with private education loans.</p>

<p>My question in regards to these private loans is , lets say you take these and pay interest only for the years your in college and then when you get out wouldn't you just consolidate it anyways at a lower rate.</p>

<p>yep...if your FICO scores are good....you can consolidate at a good rate. Some require steady (1+ year) employment however.</p>

<p>Agreed - you can consolidate private education loans but again they are credit based, they are always variables rate (at least I haven't seen any private consolidation programs with a fixed rate?) - and they are very much like your regular consumer loan - there is no wiggle room like there is when you are working with a federally guaranteed student loan.</p>

<p>Most of the stories you hear about people being so far in debt are usually because they have borrower thru the private programs and got in too deep without realizing what they were doing AND without using the federal loan programs out there.</p>