Higher education is more costly than ever. More students are finding it harder to keep up with the financial demands of tertiary education. It’s not uncommon to find that a student has more than one student loan to their name in order to help them pay for their studies. This often becomes a burden for many students and their best option for getting out of debt is student loan consolidation.
The student loan consolidation process involves taking out a master loan in order to pay off your other loans. Then you’re left with one loan with a new interest rate, new terms and conditions and an alternative repayment period. Click here to see if this is the right option for you.
How to get the best from student loan consolidation:
Negotiate for a fixed rate
This way, your monthly payments stay the same. This makes it easier to keep track of your payments and your instalments are never affected by interest rate fluctuations.
Be clear about your grace period
This is a period of time that you have after your studies to hold off paying your loan. Keep in mind that the sooner you consolidate, the less interest you’ll have to pay on multiple loans.
Find a payment schedule that works for you.
You need to be vocal about a payment schedule that also works well for you. After all, you need to be able to repay the loan.
Make sure you pay your loans on time.
Student loan consolidation will work best when you make timely payments. You need to ensure that you never skip any payments. This way, you’ll be able to repay your loans faster.
Set up automatic payments.
Ask the lender if they provide lower interest rates for those that set up automatic payments. You may get your interest reduced. This way, you also ensure that you never skip any payments.
