I really need to sit down and get my loans in order.
Thanks to me getting grants for the last couple of years my loans only come out to like $16-17k, but I have 2 separate federal loans through Nelnet and one private loan I had to get due to severe, severe fuckups on the university's part. I was pretty sure I didn't have to start paying my loans back until over a year after I graduate but between every semester I keep getting "PAY US PAY US" letters from Nelnet, and have to bug the university to send off my enrollment info to get my deferment.
Shit, today I got two letters from Nelnet. The first one was dated on the 25th of January and said I needed to start paying on the 15th of this month, and the second which was dated 3 days later said, "Oh wait, you're enrolled. Nevermind."
...I didn't miss getting the mail either, these both arrived on the same day.
"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
I consolidated through the federal program with Nelnet as my loan "company" five or six years ago. I ended up extending my loan by a number of years, but I went from a combined 340 a month for all my loans to half that.
The only reason I went with Nelnet was they had my grad school loans already so I did not have to file a lot of extra paperwork, and they gave me .75% reduction in my interest rate for 36 consecutive on time payments and automatic payment.
The big advantage, other than the lower payments which I sorely needed many times over the last few years, of consolidating for me was that I went from having 4 payments a month (1 to Fed loan program, 2 different loans to my undergrad, one to Nelnet) to 1.
Consolidation now should be as good a time as any to do it, especially if you have decent credit. Interest rates are still retardedly low. Make sure you are comfortable with your decision before you sign though, as you are only allowed to consolidate federal loans once in your life.
'Reality' is the only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.
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