AES Loan Consolidation

AES or American Educational Services has provided both federal student loans and private student loans for a number of people.  Now many people who have student loans are trying to consolidate those loans, including the Perkins loan, the Stafford loan, and the Plus loans, as combining them together can provide you with repayment options that will cut down your monthly payments and allow you to make that payment in one monthly amount.  This may be a perfect idea for you if you are having difficulty making the monthly payments you have for your student loans. 

There are certainly some advantages and some disadvantages that you should consider prior to determining if student loan consolidation is a good decision for you.  First, you will be able to have payments that are lower each month.  You will also only have to pay just one bill to a lender instead of being responsible for several payments.  This may also provide you with an opportunity to extend the time period that you have to repay your loan.  Having a fixed interest rate is also helpful for many people.  You will not even have a limit to how many loans you can have consolidated.  There also will not be a minimum balance required of you for the federal rules. 

Yet for some people, consolidating their student loans may not be the best decision.  You may be extending the amount of time it takes to pay back your student loans.  You may also then end up with more interest to pay in the long run.  You may lose some of the incentives you have on your loan.  The interest rate is calculated through the weighted average of all of the loans that are being consolidated with this process, and then they will be rounded to the closest 1/8 of one percent.  Finally, if you have a Perkins loan, it will not keep its deferment subsidy, so there are many things to consider. 

So now that you know about consolidating your student loans, you are probably wondering if this is a possibility for you.  If  you have graduated recently, are a borrower of money who is currently paying back on your student loans, or you are a parent who has a PLUS loan, then  you should be able to qualify for loan consolidation.  Even if you are still in school but are only in school on a part time basis,  you can have your student loans consolidated too.  Only those loans that are federally guaranteed are able to be included in a loan that is a federal consolidation loan.  If you have graduated in the last six months and you are still in the grace period of the federal loan at this time, you are still eligible for a loan consolidation that has an interest rate that is lower.  The borrowers have to have at least one of the guaranteed loans in order to be eligible to have a consolidation of their federal loans.  Any of these federal education loans that are defaulted or are currently held by a different lender, they will not be eligible to be involved in the consolidation of the federal AES loan.  Yet if the federal education loans you have are held by AES, then they are able to be involved in the consolidation that you have after the loans have been rehabilitated.  If you have received a Federal Consolidation Loan sometime in your past and you have added on more federal education loans since that time or you did not have all of the eligible loans in your earlier consolidation, then you may be able to have a new AES consolidation of your student loans.  

If you are a parent who took out a loan for the education of your child, then you will also be eligible to have a debt consolidation.  This will give you as a parent the same benefits that your child would have.  If you are a parent who has a PLUS loan for more than just one child, then you must consolidate each of them separately.  Federal law does prohibit you from consolidating more than one account together, with the exception of a consolidation of a spouse's loan. 

Keep in mind that if you decide to consolidate student loans, it may take up to about eight weeks to do so.  While you are waiting for the loan to be funded, you will have to keep paying for any more student loan bills that come to you.  The repayment will start in about sixty days of the funding of the loan.  The funds of the loan will be sent right to your creditors.  There also will not be a grace period for you.  A consolidation loan will provide you with a longer term of repayment as well as monthly payments that are less, but remember that the payback of the total interest that you have during the time period of your loan will be higher when you consolidate.  Despite this, a student loan consolidation will help you to combine student loans into just one loan.  This may be a good option for you, but remember to consider all of the advantages and potential disadvantages before making your decision about what is best for your unique situation.