consolidate kansas loan student
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Consolidation frenzy grows
Alumni, students and their parents have been calling Suni a dozen times a day at the University of Missouri-Kansas City financial aid office, asking his advice on whether to consolidate government college loans before interest rates rise July 1.
College financial aid offices throughout the country are being inundated with inquiries about government loans.
Suni, UMKC financial aid coordinator, said the calls are being fueled by the marketing strategies of lenders encouraging borrowers to consolidate.
"Lenders are mailing post cards and doing banner pop-ups on Web sites and offering a variety of deals for students to potentially get some savings down the road," Suni said. "This can be described as a mad feeding frenzy, and midnight on June 30th is the witching hour."
On July 1, the interest rate for government loans will jump nearly 2 percentage points, except for those borrowers, including students with loans, who consolidate and lock in their current rate.
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Student loan rates to leap
And that leaves student loan borrowers around Kansas City and across the nation barely a week and a half to lock in some of the lowest college loan rates in their lifetimes.
Lenders and government officials have been warning borrowers for about a month to consolidate their federally backed college loans and lock in low rates now before a 1.8 percentage point jump on July 1 pushes interest costs to 7.1 percent for existing Stafford loans and to 7.9 percent on Parent Loan for Undergraduate Student, or PLUS, loans.
Borrowers who already have begun repaying their various loans can consolidate now and lock in a 5.375-percent fixed rate for the life of their loan. Students who are still in school, or left there so recently that their payments haven't kicked in yet, can lock in an even sweeter 4.75 percent.