I don't know about you, but my personal experience when it came to first accruing, and then paying off student loans was one fraught with debt, debt, a little bit more debt, and then some more debt. Which of course led to nearly countless offers in the mail from student loan consolidation experts. Apparently, I wasn't the only only one struggling with my college student loans.
Now, something I learned about student loan consolidation companies is, they're a very persistent bunch of people. Once they've decided you're a ripe candidate for consolidating student loans, they go after you like a top basketball player in the draft. If you have student loans that need consolidating, let me assure from personal experience, you will have no problem consolidating your college student loans. Granted, you still won't necessarily be guaranteed to pay off your student loans and be debt free; but at least all those pesky college student loans will be consolidated, so you can just look at one nice consolidated loan you can't make payments on.
I kid, mostly. Consolidated loans can be handy, and there are benefits to consolidating student loans, provided you lock in a decent interest rate, which. . .
That's really the most important part about consolidating your student loans, you see. A low interest rate. As eager as student loan consolidation companies are to get you to consolidate your student loans, they're not all that keen on securing a nice, low interest rate for you. In fact, the larger the interest rate on a consolidated loan, the happier they seem to be.
So, as useful as consolidating your student loans may be, it's kind of pointless to consolidate those student loans, and any loans, really, if you end up paying more in interest then you did previously. You should write that down.
As a veteran survivor of crushing college student loan debt, as well as a veteran of hordes of student loan consolidation companies sending me junk mail and spam e-mail, I'm here to tell you: student loan consolidation can be a good thing, but be sure to shop around until you find a student loan consolidation company that offers the lowest interest rate that's possible.
Otherwise, I think you'll find you'll be paying off your college student loans, consolidated or not, on into the afterlife. Maybe even longer.
Posted by Ryan at November 9, 2005 02:52 PM | TrackBackChris Coleman owes his victory to mistaken identity. Most voters thought they were re-electing Sen. Norm Coleman. Others mistook the candidate as former Viking Chris Doleman (whom they eagerly voted for, after finding no pro wrestlers on the ballot). The rest believed they were putting the Star Tribune guy in office ("Anything to make him stop writing those shitty columns," they thought).
Posted by: Jimmo at November 10, 2005 08:00 AMSo you're saying you oppose this guy riding into office on the strength of his politically-connected family's name recognition in spite of his glaring lack of qualifications? And that the voters chose him over an incumbent with a strong record of public service purely because they associated the incumbent with a president who, due to recent scandals magnified by partisan attacks, has come to be viewed as damaged goods?
Next you're going to say he used his family connections in the polictical machine and the media to game the system.
Cute, flaming, but no.
I'm saying that it's disingenuous for Nick to say their father's legacy had nothing to do with Chris's election. It most certainly contributed, and Nick knows this.
And, I don't oppose it at all. Politically connected families tend to get elected over those who aren't. That's just politics. It's not a perfect system, but name me one that is.
And that the voters chose him over an incumbent with a strong record of public service purely because they associated the incumbent with a president who, due to recent scandals magnified by partisan attacks, has come to be viewed as damaged goods?
Al Gore was the incumbant president in 2000? Who knew?
I do agree that Clinton's woes affected Gore's chances somewhat, but it was hardly the DEFINING issue of that election. In St. Paul, a sitting Democrat was ousted by a. . . Democrat, largely, if not mostly, because that Democrat had the audacity to give verbal support to the president over a year ago. That's some fine voter logic on display there.
And this is coming from a guy who voted for Gore in 2000 and neither candidate in 04.
I have a raging head cold today, so if I'm not particularly making sense, that's probably why.
Posted by: Ryan at November 10, 2005 12:53 PM
