<p>I want to accept my awards on SIS, but I have to choose a lender for my Stafford and Perkins loans.</p>
<p>Any suggestions of who I should choose to be my lender? Does it matter? Right now my bank if Bank of America, so should I choose BoA as my lender?</p>
<p>Someone please help me out, thanks.</p>
<p>bump, anyone?</p>
<p>We just chose pretty much at random (Wells Fargo as it turns out). Please don’t rely too much on my opinion, because I really don’t know for sure, but I doubt it matters much if these programs are defined by the federal government. Even though we have a BofA close by, you may be aware that that institution has had some financial troubles and we just decided to try to stay clear of any hassles (I imagine your loans could be sold off later to a different institution anyway, so again it probably doesn’t matter).</p>
<p>Russian: I looked into this a little bit more. The basic terms for Stafford and Perkins loans are specified by the federal government and so there are no differences there. In my brief investigation I didn’t see much information regarding Perkins loans at all, at least whether there were any minor differences (or “breaks” offered) among lenders. However, there are some minor breaks you can get depending on the vendor you go to for Stafford Loans. For example, some lenders will waive all or a portion of the initiation or default insurance fees (max. allowable is 1% of loan amount for each). Some places will apparently offer you a discounted interest rate if you establish an automatic payment plan, or give you a rate discount or rebate on the principal if you make all of your payments on time over some number of consecutive months. These of course would only kick in in the future once you actually begin to pay the loans back, and you would have to live by the lender’s special requirements to get the “breaks” they offer.</p>
<p>ps, I should have said origination fee not initiation fee (you’re not joining a club). sorry.</p>
<p>thanks weldon, I actually chose Discover Student loans yeaterday, because they don’t have any origination, default, prepayment fees unlike some of the other companies</p>