Private loans and Graduate PLUS
Hello b-school matriculants,
For those who are looking for loans... can you share tips / know-hows?
A friend told me that Sallie Mae offers pretty competitive rates, so I applied online and found out the interest rate (for fixed) would be more than 8% for me.
I also looked into SoFi, it looks very promising, but the application itself looked a lot more thorough (and time-demanding to complete) so I haven't submitted it yet.
How are Graduate PLUS loans compared to all these private options?
Anyone willing to share past experience?
There's also Common Bond which is a bit cheaper than grad plus. Not sure what I'll do yet, I kind of like the permanent disability hedge the government bond gives you.
What's that? - PDH
If you're going federal, max out your Staffords before taking any PLUS loans. Keep shopping around for privates. There are probably 10-15 lenders out there. Discover, Citi, Wells Fargo, Sun Trust, CharterOne, Sallie Mae, etc. All applications within 30 days count as a single hard inquiry for credit scoring purposes, so buckle in for a few hours and apply to all of them. Then you can compare all your options. I had some lenders quote 7%+, but ended up going all private at 3-4% variable. Sterling credit and a consigner help too.
if you get permanently disabled, your debt is wiped clean if you have gov't loan.
Sounds like a very very bad wish.
It's not a wish, it just adds value to the gov't loans over other methods, even if its rates are slightly higher.
Long-term disability insurance, offered through many employers, is much cheaper than the extra 2% I'd be paying for federal loans.
Anyone going the home equity loan path?
PLUS loan is nuts at 7.8% (or was when I borrowed). If you are going into something high paying (e.g. consulting/banking, although never guaranteed), makes sense to mix Fed Stafford with floating private.
I did subsidized stafford (no interest while in school) + private when in school.
I refinanced to all private once out of school, at 2.75% variable, through DR bank. They are a bit disorganized, but their rate is low.
There are no subsidized Staffords for grad students.
I got subsidized staffords for business school. I was at Kellogg from 2010 to 2012.
....so, not sure your post is accurate. Maybe it is though.
Just looked through my records. I got $8,500 of subsidized (no interest until 6 months after graduation) per year.
They stopped offering these on July 1, 2012. Were you in school before that date?
Got it. Thanks for the information. Sorry for the confusion / disruption.
Has anyone looked into Commonbond?
I ended up deciding to use use commonbond, seems like the best bet if you want to go fixed rate. A lot of people seem to be going variable rate, and getting 3-4% per year...but I expect rates to QUICKLY start to increase in 2015. That, along with the fact I'm taking out ~$150k so it'll probably take me close to the full 10 years to pay off, made common bond the best choice for me.
Interesting - did you max out stafford loans first, or are you going all commonbond?
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