If you’re a parent or ex-student who took out any Federal PLUS Loans or Stafford Loans prior to July 1, 2006, those student loans are subject to variable interest rates that will adjust every year. When interest rates rise, your monthly student loan payments may also go up. If you’re on a tight budget, higher monthly payments may prove difficult to manage. Do you wish, instead, you could have a set monthly payment for your federal student loans that you know would never change? Student loan consolidation may be for you.

Federal student loan consolidation gives you the security of a fixed interest rate. By consolidating your federal parent student loans, you’ll replace your variable-rate college loans with a fixed-rate consolidation loan, so you’ll never have to worry about interest rates rising and leaving you guessing about your monthly payment amount.

Take the Hassle Out of Repaying Your Student Loans

If you have multiple college loans in repayment and you’re juggling multiple bills, multiple due dates, and multiple monthly payments to multiple lenders, a student loan consolidation could help make your repayment easier to manage. With a student loan consolidation program, you can bundle all your eligible federal parent or student loans into one single consolidation loan with just one monthly bill and one monthly payment that’s fixed for the life of your college loan.

Cut Monthly Payments on Your Student Loans by up to 40%

Besides offering you convenience and the security of a fixed interest rate, a student loan consolidation could also help you cut your monthly student loan payments almost in half. When you consolidate your college loans, you may be able to extend the repayment term on your parent or student loans by up to 20 years. With that longer repayment term, since you have more time to repay, the amount you have to pay each month will typically go down. By consolidating your college loans, your monthly payments could go down by up to 40%!

Apply in Minutes to Consolidate Your Student Loans

You can apply for your student loan consolidation in minutes, either online or with a quick phone call to NextStudent. It’s fast, easy, and free to apply, and there are NO fees, NO credit checks, and NO co-signers required.

There are also no prepayment penalties on your Federal Consolidation Loan. When you consolidate your student loans with NextStudent, you’ll never be charged extra for paying more than the minimum each month or for paying off your student loan consolidation early.

Who’s Eligible for Student Loan Consolidation?

To be eligible to consolidate your own federal student loans, you can’t currently be enrolled in school more than half time. The student loans you’re looking to consolidate must be in repayment, in a grace period, or in an authorized deferment or forbearance period.

Your parents can consolidate the PLUS loans they took out to help you pay for school as soon as those student loans have been fully disbursed and have entered repayment, even if you’re still in school full time. Although your parents can consolidate their PLUS loans, you won’t be able to consolidate your own college loans with your parents’ loans.

Student Loan Consolidation for Private Student Loans

If you have private student loans in addition to (or instead of) your federal student loans, you won’t be able to consolidate your private student loans under the federal student loan consolidation program. But you may be eligible to consolidate your private student loans separately with a Private Consolidation Loan, which offers the same convenience of a single consolidated loan for your private student loans.

NextStudent believes that getting an education is the best investment you can make, and we’re dedicated to helping you pursue your education dreams by making college funding simple. Learn more about Student Loans, Private Student Loans and Student Loan Consolidation at NextStudent.com.

You must honestly assess and study your financial position to direct more? more debts. Consolidate loans debt? a pi? often use the program or the sense of dealing with the difficulties. If you realize that you are not meeting to conclusion, then? the time to meet a consultant for accreditation. If you are convinced that the failure or advise is not yet right for you, l? are other options. The option to consolidate loans debt could be your first step to your financial wellness. There are many senses consolidate debt loans for your financial wellness. You have to understand and learn how to have a good handle on your debts and loans. Taking care of your financial problem on your own pu? be too easy. But you need help and information to direct more. There? a highly - suggested service debt settlement and negotiation that? available to you online. ? easy and simple as signing up for a short sign up form. The consolidation of debt? meaning that one of pi? easy you can do. You can also apply for a credit card with low interest bearing and put all your debts credit cards in a single credit card. This way you do not need your collateralized loan. Nessun'esigenza a commitment or un'equit? home as loan. Put simply, the transfer of the non? bad idea if you have good handle on your finances. Sure to include all high credit card interest you. Some of the agencies and debt counseling services offer debt settlement and negotiation. These agencies will negotiate on your behalf and reduce your debt by a piece? significant. Go online and search the Internet all the resources you need. Then you are surprised to find m? The lto or these agencies and consultants who provide these services. There are many advantages when the loans consolidated debt through the agencies of the debt. Do not be frightened about the concepts of the agencies that scamming. All you have to do? to make sure you understand the terms and conditions. Do not sign until it does not fully understand what was coming. You will always find those agencies that really on your behalf. The good thing? you do not have a face to face with your suppliers. Negotiate and get a simple follow the program and the payment of debt. All you have to do? to follow the teeth and make your monthly payment. Having negotiated an establishment faciliter? the difficulties? and the financial problem that is annoying. The other way to consolidate loans debt? with a bank loan collateralized loan or equity? home. Which one? suitable to your situation, do not wait too long. Far too often if you wait too long, your debt problem gets pi? defective. And when you get pi? defective pi? hard find a better deal for your financial boredom. The loan debt consolidation will? Always a good deal of sense of indebtedness. Take a favor and reduce your monthly bill payments, reduce your interest rate and reduce your debt problems. Consolidate loans debt? possibly your best option for your financial wellness.

Would FREE copies your credit report be of interest? If you are committed to repairing your credit or simply want to know what is on your credit report, I have good news for you. A free copy of your credit report is available to every consumer annually. This article discusses the free report as well as repairing your credit report once you have your credit file on hand.

Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey and Vermont always had a right to one free report per bureau each year. But now this same benefit is available in every state - one FREE credit report from each of the three major national credit bureaus every 12 months.

Additionally, consumers may be entitled to a free report under certain other conditions, such as having been denied credit, insurance or a job within the past 60 days. You’re also entitled to a free report if you think your report is inaccurate due to fraud.

But under the new law, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion have an online site where you can get a free report at Annual Credit Report. There is also a toll-free phone number: 877-322-8228. Finally you can write to P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. Yahoo News suggests: “If you do use the postal address, it’s best to print and mail in a completed online request form. You can’t get your report unless you answer questions on the form.” There is also information available through Federal Trade Commission.

You can purchase additional reports and/or a credit score by contacting one of the consumer credit reporting companies.

Equifax

Experian

TransUnion

You can also purchase a credit score when you request your free annual credit report through Annual Credit Report (referenced above.)

You might want to note that each bureau offers credit ID fraud called safeguard services, but for fees. For example TransUnion offers “ID Fraud Watch”. For $10.95 each quarter, you get a credit report every three months and $25,000 of identity theft insurance.

Once you have your report, what do you look for?

Here are some basic things you should check on your report. Go through your entire report entry by entry. Have the credit agency legend by your side in order to verify coding compliance. Have also a paper and pencil to annotate any item you find in error. Go slowly.

Don’t assume your personal information is correct. You could be viewing information from someone else’s report with just a simple error such as: first name misspelled, missing Jr./Sr., erroneous address, bad zip code, wrong employer, or any other incorrect personal data.

Insure marital information is correct. Are accounts listed as “joint” really joint?

Is the report in compliance with court settlements? Outdated information is normally considered to be any item older than 7 years except for bankruptcy, which is usually 10 years.

Closed accounts should not be listed as open. Accounts you closed should reflect, “Closed by consumer”. Otherwise it can be assumed that it was closed by the creditor– not good.

Accounts should not appear twice even in different sections.

Incorrect histories such as late payments, a credit entry you do not recognize, a pre-marital debt of your current spouse, or other such items need your attention.

Are there missing reports that would be beneficial to show a good history, and are profiles, credit limits, and balances correct?

A former correction to your credit file that has since disappeared should be brought to the agency’s attention.

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Final Comments: I am often asked if a collection company sells your account to another collection agency, can you get the first one deleted from your report or will it just show as a zero balance

Reporting depends on who owns the account there are several directions this can take:

If the original creditor still owns the account but assigns the debt to a collection company then both get to report on that account listing.

If the original creditor retracts the collection and re-assigns it to a new collection agency then both original creditor and the 2nd collection agency can report but the first one must remove their listing off of the credit report.

If the original creditor sells the debt to a collection agency then the creditor will report zero balance / sold to another lender, and the collection agency will report.

If that collection agency assigns a debt to another collection agency then it is allowable for both to report the account listing, but if they take back that account then that assigned collection agency must remove their reporting.

Now if that collection agency sells the debt to another collection agency they get to keep their reporting on the report since they owned the account at one time, and the new collection agency picks up on the reporting.

Therefore, the difference is if your account is “assigned” or “sold”.

Readers will probably be interested to know Mike, the author of this article, also offers a free debt elimination mini-course via e-mail. You can enroll at Debt Free In 7.5 Years.