Pragmatic Finance

There was a good article on CNN money about rising interest rates for student loans starting on July 1 and how this affects consolidation. If you have student loans and haven’t looked at consolidation now would be a good time. Last year the rules for them were changed so any stafford loans taken out after July 1 would be at a fixed rate of 6.8% instead of the current variable rate. Right now the variable rate for stafford loans is 4.7% but is expected to raise two percentage points according to the article. Any variable rate stafford loans are going to have much higher rates after June 30. This thread on fatwallet seems to be a pretty good resource detailing the changes to the loans laws. If your a student or just finishing and have loans I advise to read up on it and see what would benefit you most.

So far I only have stafford subsidized loans that are variable rate. I haven’t researched it thoroughly but it seems like I can consolidate them into a Direct Consolidation Loan right now and lock in the 4.7% rate.