<p>I have a Federal Stafford Loan at Vassar, and I'm trying to choose which lender to use. Needless to say, I'm incredibly confused, I don't really understand what the specific differences among them REALLY mean :( The four preferred lenders are Total Higher Education (T.H.E.), Chase, Citibank, and Nellie Mae. Does anyone know anything about these? Which are good or bad? Any response is appreciated!!</p>
<p>A lot of times it comes down to the Borrower Benefits offered since Stafford rates are set by the government.</p>
<p>College Toolkit (<a href="http://www.CollegeToolkit.com%5B/url%5D">http://www.CollegeToolkit.com</a>) and FinAid (<a href="http://www.FinAid.org%5B/url%5D">http://www.FinAid.org</a>) have some tools to help you evaluate loan options.</p>
<p>Stay away from the following companies -- Nellie Mae or any Sallie Mae Company.</p>
<p>Citi and Chase are good options. But your best choice would be Northstar/THE.</p>
<p>Here's why -- zero up-front fees (Citi, Chase and Nellie Mae also offer zero fees) it's the repayment benefit (the THE Bonus) can be up to 20% of your loan balance. But the best incentive is you never lose the benefits (unless you consolidate or are more than 60 days late on a payment. But once your account is current the benefit is reinstated. Not true with other lenders. If you miss any of your first 36 or 48 payments you lose any repayment incentives. Some lenders even take them away if you miss a payment after receiving the benefit.</p>
<p>According to finaid.org -- most students miss a payment within the first 12 months. The payment most likely to be missed --- the first one.</p>
<p>I actually work in the industry, but not for any of these lenders. Northstar/THE has a really strong program -- I tell all my friends to consider Northstar when applying for a student loan.</p>
<p>I hope this helps. Good luck in the fall.</p>
<p>Sidenote to the THE Bonus - the past post said that you LOSE it if you consolidate, which isn't true.</p>
<p>THE offers the BONUS on their consolidation loan as well (.75%) - and the same rules apply. There is no way to lose it - the only way you don't receive it is if you go 60 days or more late - then it stops, but as soon as you bring yourself beyond that 60 day time frame, the BONUS starts up again. </p>
<p>This is untraditional in the marketplace and a really nice feature, being that only 5-15% of borrowers are receiving the "on-time" repayment incentive, where with THE over 95% of their borrowers receive it!</p>
<p>thanks for the help! after deliberating w/my mom, i actually chose chase... and i <em>plan</em> on being on-time with all my payments (something that I know is easy to say now)... but thanks for the input! :)</p>
<p>Oddly, both of my kiddos have Stafford Loans. We were never given any choice of a lender.</p>
<p>really? that's so strange! i was given a list of four "preferred lenders"... i guess i could probably also have chosen one that wasn't "preferred," but that would have probably been foolish. still, i had a choice....</p>
<p>thumper, it depends on the school. My daughter's school offered a choice of 3 lenders. My daughter went with Student Loan Xpress which has 0% Origination Fee and 2% interest rate reduction upon entering repayment with automatic payment withdrawal. So basically as long as she signs up for automatic payments it will be a 4.8% fixed rate. </p>
<p>However, it looks like the -0- origination fee is something negotiated with the college -- we were given links to Barnard-specific web pages for each of the lenders. It's a competitive market place, so it may be that some colleges are able to negotiate better deals for their students.</p>