I like many other people accepted student loans in college, lots of them, about 12... total isn't much over $25k but, but managing them is a nightmare. I think every one of them is now with a different lender, despite them all originally being from Wachovia... many of them have old addresses and contact information, some are managed by the Dept. of Education, but I pay other companies, some send bills, some don't.<p>I have no clue what's paid, what isn't, and how much is owed. I don't know my options, the ways of paying, or anything... why isn't anyone taking advantage of the millions of student debtors? The service is needed, has opportunities for valuable service promotion and referrals for revenue.<p>tl;dr - I can't manage my 12 student loans, suggestions?<p>What do you think HN? Someone already doing it? Anybody interested in something like this?
Consolidate your student loans into one loan. This is pretty easy -- you can do it online in a few hours. Companies used to throw themselves at students to get their consolidation business since it is practically risk-free (subsidized up the wazoo and nondischargeable in bankruptcy to boot).<p><a href="https://loanconsolidation.ed.gov/AppEntry/apply-online/appindex.jsp" rel="nofollow">https://loanconsolidation.ed.gov/AppEntry/apply-online/appin...</a><p>If you do this through a bank, they may do some of the legwork to rope together your loans for you. (If your bank has a student loan group which does this routinely, your permission and SSN make this a ten minute job for a junior employee, and since your business is worth a few thousand bucks they're happy to do it to get you in the door.)<p>The other option for decreasing cognitive load is accelerating repayment. I got out of debt seven years ahead of schedule. It was economically suboptimal at the interest rates I was being charged, but the sleep it saved was worth every penny of opportunity cost.
Given that you've got an average loan balance of only around $2000 across those loans, how quickly would you be able to knock out some of the smaller ones and bring down that loan count? It's generally best to start on the highest interest loans first, but sometimes its more emotionally gratifying to have the visible progress of loans getting paid off.<p>As for consolidation, it depends on a few factors. A lower interest rate in the new loan is certainly good, but that benefit is limited if the consolidation will result in fees, or if you plan to have the loans paid off quickly (which I recommend if at all possible). In any case, always be careful about the small print, <i>especially</i> when it comes to private student loans, which are NOT all alike and are notoriously prone to pitfalls and gotchas (hooray banks).<p>You mentioned having loans managed by the Department of Education. I'm assuming those are Direct Loans (<a href="http://dl.ed.gov" rel="nofollow">http://dl.ed.gov</a>), which should all be accessible via the same interface. If you log in there and check your loan balances, they might also have a link to view the balances of other federal loans (eg Perkins) which are not necessarily handled by Direct Loans. I haven't visited the site since I paid off my loans but I remember it tracking the balance on my one non-Direct loan (albeit with some delay).<p>For financial advice in general, I'd recommend looking at the Bogleheads Forums, which are primarily about investing but also have a lot of great information and advice on personal finance: <a href="http://bogleheads.org/forum" rel="nofollow">http://bogleheads.org/forum</a>
> I can't manage my 12 student loans, suggestions?<p>This is a one-time data-entry problem.<p>Enter the details into quicken.<p>You may need to ask each for a statement of accounts.<p>The only way that a service can help is if it has access to the relevant records.
I have many loans too (a mix of Federal and private). But, I managed to get everything through salliemae.com. Its almost like consolidating without consolidating. I make one payment to them a month and a little goes to everyone. I'm not sure if you can move other loans to them or not.<p>Have you thought about consolidating all the Federal ones and the Privates ones so you only have 2 payments to keep track of? Unfortunately I don't believe you can mix both together.<p>If that isn't an option, then Mint.com also allows you to add different kids of loans and track them. I actually do this now because I find their historical charts and tools a bit more useful than what Salliemae offers.
Spreadsheet?<p>While there's possibly a market there, I wouldn't be too geeked about trying to build a service to profit off of the debt of others. But there are some services out there targetting credit card debtors - a student loan is just another account with a balance, no? (yes, different legal rights may apply, but from a math and organization standpoint, it's the same).
Take an inventory of the loans, rates and payment amounts to get a handle on your situation. How much in total do you need to set aside each month? When will the debts be paid in full?<p>Consolidating is a good option considering the low interest rate environment at the moment. Keep an eye out for fees, if you are aggressive about paying off your loans then it may not be worthwhile. Alternatively, you should be able to set up auto payments from each provider to deduct from a bank account.
Suggestion: Before taking a loan, always explore if a scholarship is a possibility. If your result is pretty decent, most companies or community are more than willingly to give you a scholarship.