Might be personal but....

For those of you who have student loans, how much do you 'roughly' pay each month? I know undergrad was almost paid in full, with the exception of SOME $ but I did take out loans for my masters.

How much should I factor in student loans after graduating into my monthly payments???

I think it really depends upon a number of factors including how much you initially took out in SLs and what your interest rate is. I took out a lot of loans for law school but my interest rate is 2.6% locked in for 30 years. I am not in a hurry to pay the loans off since I make more interest in my savings account and can use my money elsewhere for greater returns.

Locking in an interest rate may be a good idea because the interest rates are going to increase again this summer. I would check out the lock in rates and see what your lender can offer you. I think the highest rate is something in the 8% range and the lowest right now is about 4%. They derermine the length of the loan by the amount of $ you took out to finance your education.

I would call citybank and specifically ask them the following:

1. What is the total amount of my loan?

2. Most Important Question: What is the current locked in rate and what will the rate be after I graduate? I think the rate will be lower NOW and a lot higher later so it might be good to call today.

3. They determine payment length by the amount of $ taken out, I think if you took out more than $30,000 then you can qualify for a 30 year loan with lower rates, but that may be federal (my loan is a federal loan and that is how it works)

ETA: I think you can only lock in once so make sure that is what you want to do, but I thnk rates are going up b/c of the FED and Bernakie.

If you can consolidate now - do it! Rates will go up again on July 1st and they will be enormous hikes. Paperwork takes a while to get it in and processed.

We went through this last year with my husband. We locked in at 2.3% for 20 years and that's roughly $125/month that I pay for about $25,000. The other loan we have is a private loan through Citibank and that's at 6.5% right now also on $25,000 and I pay about $200/month. I always try and pay extra money so that the balance goes down faster.

After an exhausting 2 hours on the phone with lenders I consolidated with SallieMae and got a locked in rate for about 4.7 with a 3.5 in a year upon on time payments. I put all my other loans into repayment status so the loan can go through.

My monthly payments are $96 for the first two years and $167 for the next 20. I cannot tell you how extremely difficult it was to get this all done. College Loan Corp gave me such a hard time with putting my acct into repayment status.

Thanks for your help ladies!