Consolidation of Student Loans under the same lender???

[Anonymous]

Hi Forum,

I am very baffled about this topic. Currently, I have all my undergraduate and graduate loans with Sallie Mae under deferment. As you all know, the days are closing in because I received correspondence about April's payment.

However, I received 4 different notices with various payment amounts from Sallie Mae....To be a little more organized I ask them to consolidate "Sallie Mae" loans all into one loan/payment. When I spoke to the representative who was outsourced with a language barrier, that was not an option anymore.....

What can I do to get these 4 different loans consolidated into one payment/balance? Which will allow me to budget and keep up with the amount due....

Any thoughts?

Thank You,

T

[Anonymous]

In general you can not consolidate if all of your loans are with the same lender. Every year in school we were provided with a list of lenders who all pretty much gave the same terms. I ended up always using Citibank but was warned by Financial Aid about not being able to consolidate. The way I (and all my classmates) got around this was the last year of school we simply chose another lender. I had approximately 13 loans with Citibank and 1 with Sallie Mae and I consolidated with UHEAA. 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the feedback. Also, I saw if the loan was originally with the Dept. of Education and now serviced by Sallie Mae is under a different bundle in Sallie Mae's portal....

Weird!

[Anonymous]

This is a common if not annoying practice. At this point for my private loans the only company who I originally took the loan out from that still services the loan is Citibank. The other 4 loans are all serviced by a different company. 

[Anonymous]

My student loans are through Citibank and when they came out of deferment I simply had to log in and request a consolidation online. They consolidated them down to 2 connected accounts and the payment is 25% of the original. I log on once monthyl to pay and just make one payment...their system divides it accordingly.  Your SL company doesn't offer consolidation?