Sallie Mae excessive interest

[jasper812]

Hello,

i have a 7.5% rate for my consolidated student loans. I've been making extra payments the last 6 months and I had assumed that the full payment was being applied to my principal. Well, now I've checked the last 6 months of payments and see that they've been taking out interest on both my regular payments AND my extra payment. Not only that but the amount of interest they're taking out is over 14%! It's about DOUBLE of my supposed 7.5% rate. What's going on here? Is there some tiny print in some loan agreement that allows them to do that? I can't find any loan agreements on the internet so they must hide them quite well or they're just a secret. Any ideas?

[SCF]

Has your payment due date been pushed back?  If the extra payments are not being applied to principal, they would be going in essentially as early payments, paying a portion to the principal and the rest to the interest they anticipate you to accrue in the payment period that payment covers.  With most lenders, you have to explicitly request that extra payments go directly to principal, otherwise, they will be considered regular payments made in advance.