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out-pacents Student Loans

CARES Act Interest Rates Going Back Up

Should You Refinance Before Student Loan Interest Rates Go Up

After having 0% interest on federal student loans, they are going back up at the end of the year; and this might be the time to look at refinancing your student loans, as interest rates are very low.

First, look at if you have private versus federal student loans. There is still a chance that there might be some federal relief depending on what the President decides, and waiting a couple of months to find out more information, shouldn’t affect you much.

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If you have private loans, it might be a great time to look at lowering your interest rate by refinancing, depending on how much time you have left on your repayments. Make sure to check with multiple lenders to get the best interest rate. An easy way to do this is to check on credible.com, where you are given rates from multiple lenders at once. Now that you have a baseline for what rates are, you can check with other lenders to see if they can beat the other offers.

If you have a baseline rate, I also recommend checking out your options with LeverEdge. They use collective bargaining to negotiate lower interest rates with well-known lenders. It’s free to join, and signing up doesn’t commit you to anything—they add your voice to the collective and let you know when they wrap up their negotiations, giving you the option to take the deal or keep your current loan. However, in past years the average PA who takes the deal they negotiate has saved about $30,000 on interest and fees over federal loans.

It won’t hurt to wait a couple of months to find out what student loan relief might be given with a new president, but if you have private loans, it is a good time to check out the current interest rates, as they have been very low.

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