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Actually not really, 16K is my biggest one, my only other remaining loan has roughly 5K left on it. Technically my next payment on that one isn't due for 3-4 years. It has a higher rate so I focused so much on that one I let the 16K go under the rug only paying small amounts
You're not really giving much pertinent information about your loans (e.g. original period of repayment, original balance), so it might be helpful to give that info.
One thing I can't figure out is why you don't have any payments on your $5K remaining loan for 3-4 years? Did you just make your payments in advance? Instead, you should have told your lender to apply your extra payments to principal, rather than making advances. You are still paying the exact same interest if you aren't telling the lender to apply your excess payments to principal.
It is extremely difficult to get lower than 4.75% when doing any consolidation for private (i.e. non-federal) loans. You will almost always get a floating rate that is higher than your current floating rate. For federal loans, sometimes there are consolidation options, although Congress made the consolidation program less beneficial a few years ago, and I'm not sure if it's useful now.
4.75% is relatively low (although some loans based on LIBOR are about 1.5% lower and some federal loans are quite a bit lower from the golden years of consolidation). It only feels high right now because we are in such a low interest environment. I don't think you'll beat it without refinancing the amount into a mortgage, which might not be such a great idea. (I suppose you could refi it into a car too, but that seems like a worse idea)
If you are going to make advance payments in the future, make sure you tell your lender you want them to go to principal. You will still have to make monthly payments, but they will start dropping.
FortWayne
2011 Sep 13, 7:43am
In today's economy 16k is not much now days for a student loan. Just try to pay it off fast, don't wait till last minute.
You can get some loan help as well if you qualify:
http://www.finaid.org/loans/forgiveness.phtml
I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this but might as well see what others say.
For years I've been diligently making payments on my student loans, admittedly without paying too much attention to my balance.
One of my loans has a remaining balance of 16K. Today I go and take a look at my account out of curiosity. Of the payments roughly 80% of it is going directly to interest. The amount of principle reduction is laughable.
Obviously I really need to focus on getting this principle down. Aside from increasing payments does anyone know if there's a way to refinance/gain more favorable terms?
The loan in question carries a 4.75% interest rate, accrued daily... Also important to say I've been paying for 6 years now.