sagawizard ([info]sagawizard) wrote,
@ 2009-01-07 12:29:00
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Sigh. Gotta love it. Interest rates are at record lows all over the country, except student loans. Sallie Mae cheerily tells me that they have "indefinitely suspended all loan consolidation" and I'm stuck at 6.8%.

I'm no economist, but gee, wouldn't it stimulate the economy more to give the educated middle class a little break on their loans so that they can spend more, rather than just dumping tens of billions into auto-companies that freely admit they're just going to fire lots and lots of people? Or into banks that baldly tell you they're not going to reveal how they're using the money?

I'm just oh so happy to be giving corporate welfare to CEOs while my loans pile up...

- SW

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[info]roboknee
2009-01-07 06:38 pm UTC (link)
That sucks! I managed to get mine down 4 years ago and have 6 more months before I'm done paying Brandeis back.

When I go into politics, I'm grab you and Gregg Easterbrook to be my advisors. We need a party that says, "The Dems and Reps are both lying sacks of crap looking out for themselves. Vote them all out!" Maybe Obama can change that and he's got 4 years to try.

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[info]tonysalieri
2009-01-07 08:48 pm UTC (link)
Dude,

Sallie Mae has no legal power to prevent you from taking your loan elsewhere. They act like they do, but they really don't. I spent $600 on a lawyer to make them play ball though. He had to send a simple MGL 93A violation notice to them. Sucks, but I easily made more than $600 in saved interest. Taneka went from Sallie Mae to Direct Loans, and got a 3.5% loan, and that was when the rates were slightly higher in 2003. You might be able to look into that route, since DL is a Government run organization (I believe.)

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[info]sagawizard
2009-01-07 09:20 pm UTC (link)

Wow, thanks for the heads-up. I checked and Direct Loans could give me a 6.62%, which is *something*, at least, but not much. I think over 10 years it saves me just about $600. I'm still going to be paying over $10k in interest, but why pay $600 I don't have to? (unless, of course, I have to pay a lawyer, in which case why bother?)

I dunno, I'll think.

- SW

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[info]tonysalieri
2009-01-07 09:28 pm UTC (link)
Well, Direct Loans has a program where if you let them autodeduct the money every month from your checking account, they will slice off another quarter point, bringing it down to 6.37. Still, that's not much better. Kind of surprised that even they are at that high a level, for a 0.5 Prime rate. Sheesh.

On the other hand, Sallie Mae is evil and awful to deal with, and we've never had problem one with Direct Loans in over six years dealing with them.

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