Monday, June 05, 2006

Sudent Loan Interest Rate Increase

I thought it apt to inform all of you about the July 1st increase in student loan interest rates. You can avoid this increase by consolidating any existing loans before July 1st, thereby locking into the current 5.3% rate. Below is a message sent to student council by Courtney Sproule, the Communications Director for the Oregon Student Association:
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"On Tuesday, the interest rate for federal student loans was set at 7.14 percent*almost two percentage points above the current interest rate of 5.3 percent. The rate will take effect on July 1st of this year. This increase would mean $2,000 in additional interest payments for the typical undergraduate borrower with $17,500 in debt. A recently released survey of 12 states found Oregon to have the highest number of undergraduates who take out loans and their average debt is $17,772. Oregon students will certainly be affected by this increase.

The Oregon Student Association wanted to share this info with you as a potential story that would get the word out to students that they shouldn't put off consolidating their loans until after graduation!
Students should take a few minutes now to see if student loan
consolidation is an option for them. Even borrowers who have only one federal student loan may be eligible to use the loan consolidation benefit to lock in today's lower interest rate.

You can call 1-800-557-7392 or TDD 1-800-557-7395 or go to
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/DirectLoan/consolid2.html to obtain specific information about your potential savings. Again, June is the last month to consolidate-- the rates go up on July 1st.

I'm happy to provide any additional information if you are interested.
Thank you,

Courtney Sproule

Communications Director
Oregon Student Association
503-286-0477. extn 102
fax: 503-286-0924
http://www.orstudents.org
635 NE Dekum
Portland, OR 97211"

1 comment:

Scientizzle, Ph.D. said...

If you want the screen to load normally again (without the side bar at the bottom of the page), you should remove some of the asterisks in this post so that it's not wider than the width of the article column.