Advice for student loan, please?

[LilyV]

Edit/ Just called FedLoan and a knowledgeable representative assisted me. 

[Anonymous]

I hope that they do assist you but often FedLoan Servicing will not tell you the truth. They are notorious for this and have done the same to me.

Yes, you can possibly get a lower rate with a private loan but you will lose all your federal loan benefits. Your credit score is high, and I'm assuming that's an agreed file from one of your older posts. Depending on your income, you could have a good chance. There was an older lost about this where a few places that give a solid APR were listed.
I've talked to many people who regret this decision. You never know what might happen that you need to take advantage of them.
You might look into the income-driven repayment plans, if you're not already on one. You didn't list your income but if you're payment is not touching the principal there are a couple plans that might be able to help. You should take a look at the repayment Estimator. The most helpful benefit for those not likely to get forgiven is that on IDR your interest will never capitalize. You can also pay more than the minimum if you desire to.

Also keep in mind that you are probably eligible for loan forgiveness with an IDR plan, it's just a matter of income vs loan balance as to whether you would get it. You need mentioned grad loans before, butt if any are from undergrad it would be less time. I think you were going to school for nursing, right? Have you looked into PSLF?
If you consolidate, all your counts will reset. I personally have found that the servicer also miscalculates to the interest. It might be worth doing a spreadsheet and seeing if it adds up. If you consolidate, any miscalculations become moot.
Good luck and if you have any more questions feel free to ask.

[LilyV]

Hello, Sabii! Thank you once again for your help. 

I appreciate your feedback; are you saying that there are many individuals who regret their decision to not stay with the federal student loans (and refinance to private)? If so,  I will consider staying with my federal loan but do my research, possibly add more to the principal. I will use the repayment estimator and watch out for over-paid interest. 

Unfortunately, PSLF is something that does not qualify in my case due to income.

Again, I truly appreciate your deep insight and guidance, Sabii. I wish you and yours a Happy New Year.

[Anonymous]

I didn't forget about you. 🙂
Happy New Year to you and I'll have an answer later today.

[Mookey67]

Hello.  All servicers are not bad. You will find some helpful and not so helpful reps pretty much in any business. They pretty much answer the questions you ask.  Not offer all the information . Very seldom do they go over everything because to be honest it takes too much time and can sometimes leave the caller confused with so much information.  Even if you are able to get a lower rate I would suggest not refinancing federal loans to private. Like Sabii said you do lose protections and if for some reason you ever have a problem with payments or need some relief down the line there aren't very many options at all. If I went into all the cons it will be a very long post and an overload of information. Lol. A lot of information you can find if you just do a google search. But the short answer is I personally don't think it's a good idea 

[Anonymous]

+1

[Anonymous]

In addition to keeping it a federal loan, h don't have to worry about the interest continuing to add to the principal too much because on an IDR repayment plan it never capitalizes. If you make over 50k(?? I can't remember the exact number...) then you'd be ineligible for IBR or income-bssed repayment, but you could still do REPAYE.

You said you'd be ineligible for PSLF due to income but you didn't mention if 10 years or less of repayment on IBR or REPAYE would pay back your entire loan. If not, yes you would be eligible.
One thing to keep in mind with the estimator is it takes into account significant raises every year. The range in the payments is often inaccurate. The beginning of the range is your payment for your current income. There high end of the range is your estimated payment in 10 years after raises. People often find that end payment to be lower and the forgiven amount to be higher. Remember you recertify each year. Only you can accurately guess what your pay will be in the future imo.

[Anonymous]

I switched to nelnet a couple years ago for my student loans, and nelnet has been extremely good to me.  Their level of customer service is a million miles away from the last three lenders I used.