Unfortunatly, you cannot get out of your consolidation. By consolidating your loans while in an “in school status” you waived your 6 month grace period. your 6 month grace perio is the 6 months from after graduation until repayment begins. This is why you see your 1st payment due immediatly after graduation.

It is not as bad as it seems. In the long run, you will have saved money by locking in a lower interest rate.

Let’s flash forward to May 2008. You graduate, and cannot afford these loan payments. You do have a few options.

1. Change your repayment plan. There numerous plans out there, even based on your income. Call your student loan servicer 60 days before you grad for payment plan quotes.

2. Deferment – There are other types of deferment beside an In School deferment. There are Unemployment deferments and Economic Hardship deferments. Call your student loan loan company 60 days before you grad and they will ask you questions over the phone to see if you qualify for one of these deferments (no interest accrues on your subsidized balance during any period of deferment)

3. Forbearance. This is a postponement of your payments. Interest accures regardless of the type of loan you have. These can often be approved within minutes over the phone. Call your student loan company 60 days before you graduate for this option too.

I am sorry about your consolidation. It is one of those things that is explained in the fine print.

I worked for Direct Loans for 7 years. If you need additional help (especially if your loans are through them) let me know!

You don’t mention if these were federal or private loans. With federal and private loans, you can be offered the chance to consolidate all the various loans from each year and semester into a single loan in order to keep a current interest rate. This is usually done through whomever these loans were originally taken and should not have caused you to loose the right to defer. However, if you consolidated them through another, private lender and these were private loans, then yes, you can loose your rights to deferment. This is something not everyone is aware of and should be on the look out for when consolidating private educational loans.

Consolidation of federal loans is much more regulated. In general, these can not be consolidated until the student is within 30 days of graduation. The terms, interest rates and rights to deferment are all the same, no matter the lender and are garunteed by law.

I would suggest contacting whomever you have consolidated these loans with. As you are still in college, there could indeed have been an error. You should also set up a talk with the financial aide office of your college..they should be able to help make some sense of all this. Finally, if what you were told is true, you should start investigating more reputable lenders, with better terms to consolidate your loans again (as I am assuming there will be additional loans for your senoior year) closer to graduation.

I’m going to guess these are federal student loans since private loans vary rarely allow you to lock in an interest rate. As long as you are in school you are not required to make a payment on your student loan. However, as soon as you graduate you will need to start making payments since consolidation loans do not offer the 6-month grace period. You also may lose deferment options. But, you locked in probably what will be the lowest interest rates in student loans ever. In this case, you have to take the good with the bad. For a time period you were eligible to consolidate loans while still in school, so your consolidation is legit.

a million – they value a lot. be certain you’re analyzing in a sector you will like. 2 – stay away from loans different than Stafford…. till you have not the different selection. 3 – before going with a private lender or student mortgage company, attempt your economic company for a private mortgage. good luck !

Ask for a forbearance. Most places will make an exception in that situation (for a deferment)… so that is pretty weird. I would try contacting them again… pretty crappy place.

You should NEVER consolidate before you are done. Those are threats so they can get your money sooner.

One of my old Citizenship (PSHE) teachers told my class about an effective way of escaping student loans. Move to another country e.g. Africa for about 5 years or so. Move back and you are debt free.

Alternatively just phone one of those debt consolidation adverts you see on TV

i’m not sure, but i think this site has the answer to this particular question. they’ve got lots of stuff about this anyway.