Paying back student loans….?

800$ a month is a bit high, but that may mean that they are on a shorter payback plan or just took out a heck of a lot of cash. If you’re curious as to how much you owe now and quite possibly what you’ll owe later, you can go to the finance department at your school and I’m sure they’ll help you out.

Some ideas for the future;

1. If you can, start putting money away now.

2. As soon as you graduate, consolidate your loans. This will save you a lot of money in the long run with interest. Also, currently congress is trying to pass legislation to lessen the interest rate for college loans. Write your congressperson and let them know you support this.

3. Also, when you’re consolidating your loans, set up the payment plan that’s best for you. If you want to pay it back over ten years or five.

You wont have to start paying them back until 6 months after graduation, but it never hurts to start before then if they’ll let you. Also, if you choose to pay more each month in order to knock the loan out sooner, just remember that most don’t let you pay over straight to principle. They’ll actually charge interest for whatever extra you give, which might actually mean you end up paying quite a bit more for your loans.

When I graduated I owed about $26,000 and after consolidating with a 10 year plan I pay about $160 every month, if that gives you an idea of what you might owe each month.

Hope that helps!

Hard to answer without knowing what kind of student loans you have from what lender (and in what country?) But if you are talking about US student loans, they typically come with a payment schedule, meaning they’ll tell you what you have to pay each month. To complicate things further, if you have private student loans, the interest rate is probably variable, meaning the amount you pay monthly could change.

Best thing to do is look at the paperwork (called a Mastor Promissory Note or MPN) of your current student loans and read them carefully.

If you know how much you owe approximately, you can go to our website and click on the loan calculator, put in your loans and your repayment period and you can see where you are at.