consolidation denied

[Anonymous]

my husband and i co-signed about $80k in private loans for our daughter's very fancy private school for undergrad (seemed like a good idea since she's heading to med school in august). HOWEVER - we just tried to consolidate (and co-sign) those 4 separate private loans into one - which will prob be deferred during med school (is this crazy...) - and were denied. their response: that we have too much revolving/installment debt. my husband wrote an appeal saying that the debt isn't changing - the student loans will just be consolidated and we are paying our stuff down, but were told it had been denied - tho haven't spoken to underwriter/supervisor etc. and we have another kid starting college in sept that we were going to co-sign for!! SO: should we just go to another lender to apply for consolidation? or will they deny too,even if we've banked with them for 30 years? should we put our revolving debt into an equity loan? would we be approved then? ahh.... the tangled webs we weave... . the high price for instant gratification...

[Anonymous]

I have not ran into this YET -

I would not bother consolidating unless it will lower your APR-

[LynnInMN]

In order to get any benefit out of private loan consolidation, you credit really needs to be significantly better than when you borrowed.  Plus they charge origination fees which will often negate a lot of if any interest savings.

[Anonymous]

lynninMN - she's got 4 different private loans - that's 4 payments, plus the fed loan payment.  and she's starting med school in august.  she needs to defer all those payments (unless she did the military....).  plus we learned that because she deferred this spring (hardship while applying to med schools/traveling to interviews) - our FICO score went down.  who knew....

any advice?

[Anonymous]

Hi there, did your daughter take out 4 different loans with 4 different companies? If not then she should have to write just one check each month and whether or not they're consolidated shouldn't matter. On that note I don't think this is the best time for you to consolidate, as the previous poster pointed out you can't benefit much from it if your credit score isn't vastly different, also if you wait and your daughter's credit score increases you guys won't need to cosign and you won't have that debt on your score anymore. If all else fails and you feel consolidation right now is imperative remember that,most likely, only one parents name is co-signed so the other parents credit score should not be affected. Also, each company's criteria are different so you can find one that looks at fico only so as long as your fico is high is doesn't matter what your debt-to-income ratio is. As far as your second child goes, once again you can have the other parent co-sign, a family member or you can take out a PLUS loan.

[LynnInMN]

Another kid to cosign for?  Hopefully not another private school.  As nice as private schools are, paying for them can be a life long nightmare.  I was just on my daughters pediatrians website....not a single physician in the group attended a private college.....every single one of them attended state schools!