What to Look for in a Student Loan Consolidation

The key lies in finding the best borrower benefit package (Typically rate reductions offered for on-time payments or auto-debit payments) with the least amount of small print and misinformation. There are so many marketing gimmicks out there; "no fees," "grace-period rate reductions," "principal reductions,"etc. Thankfully there are comparison sites, such as "Simple Tuition" that are helping make the search somewhat easier, while companies such as "theLoanster.com" are offering best-in-group benefit packages.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Cuomo on Settlement w/Financial Aid Offices

Buffalo — A settlement with dozens ofschools and a major lenderwill make the student loan process fairer to students and their families, State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said.
As part of the settlement, schools agreed to reimburse students a total of $3.27 million, Cuomo said, and Citibank, which does business at about 3,000 schools, agreed to donate $2 million to a national fund created to educate students and parents about the financial aid industry.
All 29 four-year State University of New York campuses, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, St. John’s University, Syracuse University, Fordham University, St. Lawrence University and Long Island University — agreed to abide by the code.
The agreements are part of a nationwide probe by Cuomo’s office into student lending. None of the schools admitted any wrongdoing.
“The college-loan industry has developed practices over the years that we believe are deceptive. We believe they’re unethical. We also believe they’re illegal at times,” Cuomo said at a news conference in his Manhattan office.
Cuomo’s investigators say they have found numerous arrangements benefiting schools and lenders at the expense of students.
An investigation continues into practices at schools and lenders that were not part of the settlement announced Monday, Cuomo said.

1 comment:

CollegeLoanSearch said...

Oh, this issue just makes our blood boil. Andy has stepped out of reason to pull this together. http://college-loan-search.blogspot.com/