Getting Out of Student Loan Debt

by: Joseph Hernandez

It is really cool to be in school until you began to start thinking ways on getting out of student loan debt. Here are some helpful tips on how to deal with this problem. You might want to consider consolidation. Consolidating your student loans may lower your total monthly payment, but take note that this is primarily because you are expanding the terms of your student loan and paying more interest in the long run. Another classic example is that if you can afford your monthly payment, and would rather not have a loan for twenty years, you should still consider the consolidation process.

Or you can also stay with a standard repayment method if you know that you can afford it and do not think that you are disciplined enough to make extra payments. There are no prepayment penalties in the consolidation of loans and a lot of benefits can be acquired from it while in the process of getting out of student loan debt.

Prior to concerning yourself with whether you should consolidate or not, you should ensure that you are eligible. If you are not a graduate yet, you cannot possibly consolidate your loans. You should either be in your six-month grace period or in repayment stage. You should have eligible loans, usually amounting to over $7,500. You can also consolidate one loan given that the loan being consolidated has not been previously consolidated.

Yes, consolidating can save you money and bring down your payments but it may not offer the month-to-month convenience that you always needed. Through refinancing student loan debt, you can lengthen the term of your loan, thus, helping you on getting out of student loan debt. It will spread out your loan over a longer period of time and cut down your monthly payments by 50 percent. However, you should assess carefully before picking this option.

For most people and together with my opinion, consolidation makes a lot of sense. If you are not satisfied with the current rates, you could wait for lower rates or better offers, but who knows when they will be coming? For now, you will be subject to a variable interest rate.

You may feel overwhelmed by your student loan debt and wish that they would just go away. As a last resort, there is a way on how to get rid of them without actually paying them, but these are special cases. If you have the interest for volunteer work, you can check out the benefits provided by joining the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps. If you have plans on being a teacher, joining the military, or working in the legal or medical industry, there are some loan forgiveness programs that you might be able to take advantage of in getting out of a student loan debt.