financial reflections

I’ve mentioned student loans before, now is a good time to mention them again.  June 30th is the deadline for those seeking to perform student loan consolidation.  Why?  Loan rates are set to jump on the 1st of July.

Here’s what one of my favorite finance gurus, Clark Howard has to say on the about student loan consolidation:

“The student loan program as we have known it comes to an end June 30. It will be replaced with a new program that has extremely high rates and it will negatively affect people taking out loans this fall. For those who have been in college or are about to finish college, you can avoid the high rates. All you need to do is what’s called an “in-school consolidation.” To do that you must give up your six month grace period and lock in RIGHT NOW.”

And there’s more to this, apparently student loans will become much more costly in the future.  That means that getting massive amounts of loan debt might not be a wise choice for the next generation (as if there wasn’t debate if it was a good idea for this generation).

As with anything, there are caveats to consolidating.  Clark also posted a link to loanconsolidation.ed.gov for more information.  If you have student loans, it’s at least worth checking out while you still have time.