After ~5 years of private university, (I wish I went to public uni!!) I amassed a fairly large sum of money in student loans. Thankfully, my mother was in a very low income bracket for which I received substantial financial aid packages, one of the perks being all my loans were subsidized by the government until repayment began after graduation. This meant that the money that I borrowed didn’t/doesn’t accrue interest until repayment when you are no longer a full time student.
Unfortunately for me, graduation has since come and gone and I’m entering repayment on what I have realized is a lot of money with high interest rates(~7%).
Let me first break it down into cold hard numbers. You’ll notice that I rarely talk about anything financial without associating the talk with hard pen and paper numbers(yes, I actually write this stuff down compulsively on scratch paper).
First off I have a $3,000 loan that is a federal perkins loan with RIT. This hasn’t gone into repayment yet, but will in the next month. I also have another $3,000 loan for Georgia Tech that is the same. I have a citibank subsidized stafford loan with a balance of $2,362.99. This loan has a payment of $100.61 a month.
The mother load resides in Direct Loans that are federal subsidized Stafford loans as well. I have a balance of $12,738.90 with a fixed interest rate of 7%, and a payment of 150.13 a month, for what seems like eternity. I consolidated this before the recent interest rate hike of .08%. Still not sure how I feel about this, but what is done is done and I’ll have to live with my decision.
Loan Summary:
Institution || Principal || Rate || Payment
Georgia Tech ||$3,000 || — || —
RIT-Perkins || $3,000 || — || —
Direct Loan || $12,738.90 || 7% fixed || $150.13/month - 10yrs
Citi || $2,362.99 || 6.97% variable || $100.61/month - ?
—————————-
Total $21,101.89
OUUUUCHHH….
I’m not sure what I should do at this point. Interest rates are at an all time high, but at the same time, I’d like to start getting some nice borrower benefits through the consolidation company. I’ve been mulling it over for a few weeks now and I decided I’ll probably just keep my rates where they are for a year and make the payments every month and see if Congress is going to step in anytime soon and help out borrowers. Right now I’d say we are getting the shit end of the stick.
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