Lender for Stafford Loan?

weldon
Mon, 04 May 2009 16:34:14 +0000

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.