FAP566: Financial Aid Podcast Starter Pack, episode 5 of 5

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Welcome to Episode 5 of the Financial Aid Podcast Starter Pack, a 5 episode miniseries designed to help you get started on the path of paying for college, as well as introduce you to the podcast and the Student Loan Network. My name is Christopher Penn, founder, host, and producer of the Financial Aid Podcast.

If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to the podcast. Subscribing to the podcast is easy and free, especially if you use iTunes for the Mac or PC, which you can get at www.iTunes.com for free. Subscribing lets you receive the podcast automatically, delivered to your digital doorstep whenever a new episode is available. To add the Financial Aid Podcast to your daily routine, just install iTunes, then visit www. FinancialAidPodcast.com and click on the Add to iTunes button on the left hand side.

This miniseries contains 5 episodes. Episode 1 is about scholarships and grants. Episode two is about the FAFSA, the free application for federal student aid Episode three is about federal student loans. Episode four is about private student loans. Episode five, which you’re listening to now, is about student loan consolidation and career stuff, things you do after you graduate. Let’s roll right into student loan consolidation.

What is student loan consolidation? Fundamentally, it’s a form of refinancing for your federal or private student loans that reduces the monthly payment by extending the loan term. student loan consolidation is a process that’s ideal for new graduates or students just a couple of years out of school, because the monthly payment reduction lets you allocate more of your budget to other expenses. Ideally, as your career or vocation takes off and your income increases, you can then make additional payments or larger payments and still pay off your loans in the same amount of time as you would have without consolidating.

student loan consolidation also improves your credit rating by paying off all of your existing loans and opening a single new loan in your name, thereby reducing the number of outstanding loans on your credit history.

The student loan consolidation process works fairly straightforward:
+ The borrower completes an application and submits it with a copy of their current loan information
+ The consolidation lender retrieves payoff statements from your existing loan holders
+ Once all the loans have been identified, a new loan is issued by the consolidation lender and the funds are used to payoff the existing loans
+ After the loans are paid off, you begin making payments to the consolidation lender

When should you consolidate your loans?
+ When making a full payment for an extended period of time could be difficult
+ When allocating scarce dollars to higher priority expenses like credit card debt is important

When shouldn’t you consolidate your loans?
+ When they’re almost paid off, or significantly paid off
+ When you’re still in school
+ When you want to pay off your loans as fast as possible

How do you compare student loan consolidation companies and offers? The best way is to do three things:
+ Compare their discounts and the terms of those discounts - for example, one company may offer a larger discount but have a higher minimum loan balance to qualify for the discount. Another company may have a great discount but if your payment is late by even as little as a day, you lose your benefits
+ Call the company’s customer service department and get a feel for what their service is like
+ Get a few applications from different companies and examine the fine print on all the applications to compare who discloses how much

The Student Loan Network offers consolidation services for both federal and private student loans. If you’d like more information about what we have to offer, please visit www.StudentLoanConsolidator.com or call 877-328-1565.

Independent Music
+ Matthew Ebel covering Tom Cochrane, Life is a Highway, BMI Work #8030021
+ Get the album Virtual Hot Wings

Get in touch with the Financial Aid Podcast!

Reminders
+ Join the Financial Aid Podcast Loyalists on Facebook
+ Make me your Facebook friend
+ Buy Virtual Hot Wings, the Matthew Ebel live bootleg album!
+ Private student loans available at any time - visit AlternativeStudentLoan.com
+ Stafford federal student loans at StaffordLoan.com
+ Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
+ FAFSA form tutorials and free help at FAFSAonline.com
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidPodcast.com.
+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Email me at financialaidpodcast {at} gmail {dot} com, visit http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com, or call 206-350-1208. AIM: FinAidPodcast Add me to your iTunes by visiting http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com/itunes/

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