topic Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae in Student Loans

Negotiate With Sallie Mae

Anonymous — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 03:19:47 GMT

Happy Friday! Hopefully someone can help me out or give me a little bit of insight.

I have two private Sallie Mae loans that I have not been late or missed a payment in the last 3 years. I have around $25K left and I have come into some money and want to pay off the loan in full so I can get it off my back. My questions are as follows:

1. Will they settle for a lesser amount? If so what should I expect them to offer? Or because I pay my bills, they wont do it. One loan is $13K and the other $12K

2. Will settling hurt my credit score. I have put in too much work to get it to a decent level so I dont want to do anything to hurt it.

Thank you and have a great weekend!

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

Anonymous — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 04:50:46 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Happy Friday! Hopefully someone can help me out or give me a little bit of insight.

I have two private Sallie Mae loans that I have not been late or missed a payment in the last 3 years. I have around $25K left and I have come into some money and want to pay off the loan in full so I can get it off my back. My questions are as follows:

1. Will they settle for a lesser amount? If so what should I expect them to offer? Or because I pay my bills, they wont do it. One loan is $13K and the other $12K
2. Will settling hurt my credit score. I have put in too much work to get it to a decent level so I dont want to do anything to hurt it.

Thank you and have a great weekend!

The only savings if any would be the interest on the balance owed.

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

taz3261 — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:59:44 GMT

I really doubt they will take a settlement since it is a student loan...sallie mae is the worst people to work with. Every year they will make my payments less they are crooks in my eyes. All about profit!!!

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

laz98 — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 07:19:10 GMT

i can't imagine why they would negotiate with you to let you pay a lesser amount...then they are just losing money.

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

Tazman81 — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 13:33:37 GMT

To put this into perspective, it is not just Sallie Mae that likely will not settle on a student loan. Student loans normally have a guarantor, so if you do not pay the full amount, then the guarantor makes up the balance. I am sure there is a clause that says Sallie Mae cannot do anything to "force" a payout from the guarantor. If they allow you to "settle" for an amount less than what you owe, then that is what would happen. They would be "forcing" a payment from the guarantor for the remaining balance.

Since student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and they do not go away, there is no need for Sallie Mae, or any other bank that gives a student loan, to settle. My suggestion would be to take some of that money and put away 3-6 months into savings for an emergency fund. Then pay a bulk of it to the private loan (or any other loan) that you have which is the highest interest rate.

Now, when you send in the lump sum to pay the loan, make sure you call them and tell them to put all of that money to principal. Sometimes when you send in a lump sum of money, a company likes to "hold" your money by pushing your due date out many months into the future. You do not want this because then you will end up paying the same amount of interest as you would have normally because you won't have a payment due for many months.

Let us know how it goes.

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

Anonymous — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 05:22:53 GMT

I would hope Sallie Mae would not negotiate a balance due (yours or mine.) Taxpayers dollars likely subsidized your loan while you were in college as my loans were. Anyone with money not only has the wherewithal to pay in full but a responsibility to pay as well.

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

Tazman81 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:01:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I would hope Sallie Mae would not negotiate a balance due (yours or mine.) Taxpayers dollars likely subsidized your loan while you were in college as my loans were. Anyone with money not only has the wherewithal to pay in full but a responsibility to pay as well.

To my knowledge, taxpayers dollars do not subsidize the interest on private loans. That is usually just federal loans.

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:35:56 GMT

Hi,

we are in the same situation than the original poster, except that we are not really trying to negotiate anything, but just pay the d**** loan off in a lump sum, around $30,000.

Could you please let me know if you were successful in doing so?

Thanks

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

laz98 — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 03:10:03 GMT

why do you think you wouldn't be able to pay it off? i don't see why you would have any trouble.

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:15:20 GMT

You must have not been to college recently. Most loans are private, because federal loans dont cover enough, AND your TAXES have NOTHING to do with the crisis at hand. Actually, most people would be happy paying back their original amount with a small amount of interest... 10% interest is TOO MUCH on a 70k loan... and then Sallie can balloon the principal, they can do whatever they want... and this is fine with most people... as if "morally," your punishments for murder are less harsh, maybe students should just start feeling the country and not paying ANYTHING back,

The reason you cant go bankrupt with student loans, is because the government wanted Sallie Mae and other lenders to lend at LOW INTEREST.... Sallie Mae and other lenders now have students by the balls, and decided to charge higher interest, knowing students can no longer escape with bankruptcy.

Re: Negotiate With Sallie Mae

SCF — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 03:51:52 GMT

For the record, the interest rates on federal loans are set by Congress, as are the annual and total limits for each type of loan that a student can borrow. The interest rate and limits on private loans are essentially set by the market in the same way as other loans. The government wanted Sallie Mae and other lenders to lend a limited amount of money at low(-ish, I would't call the 6.8% I have exactly low, but its certainly better than some private loans) rates, and they do that.

The fact that federal loans no longer cover 100% of tuition and expenses at a growing number of universities is a symptom of a larger problem that extends well beyond Sallie Mae and their high private loan rates. Honestly, I don't think most people are in any position to pay back more than the max federal loan amount when they graduate and still be able to buy a home, start a family and do the other things people want to do (like start a business, invest, plan for retirement). Your anger is probably better placed on the issue of the cost of schooling, than the cost of borrowing way more money than most people should in the first place.