Can Married Couples Consolidate Student Loans?
There used to be a time when married couples could consolidate their individual student loans. However that is no longer possible. I believe since 2006, this provision has been withdrawn and you no longer can consolidate your student loans with your spouse. Why? Well, should you consolidate your student loan with your spouse then both of you are now responsible for the loan amount and in the event of the marriage dissolving it becomes difficult for the loan to be split.
With this in mind, federal consolidation of spousal student loans is no longer an option. We get many questions asking if consolidating his or her loan with their wife or husband is possible. Below are a sampling of these questions
- “My wife and I are due to graduate from college very shortly, will we be able to consolidate our student loans into one loan or will we have to each consolidate individually?”
- “Can both me and my spouse consolidate our loans to one single loan?”
- “How can I get the best rates? I plan to consolidate all my loans with my wife”
- “Can you tell me the best consolidation company where me and my husband can consolidate our student loans?”
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- Can I Get A Grant To Pay Off My Student Loans? We get this questions a lot and the short answer to it is Yes and No. There are no direct grants that will help you pay off your student loans but there is a relief program or also what is called as a forgiveness program where if you qualify you can have a significant amount ......
Consolidation loans often reduce the size of the monthly payment by extending the term of the loan beyond the 10-year repayment plan that is standard with federal loans. Depending on the loan amount, the term of the loan can be extended from 12 to 30 years. (10 years for less than $7,500; 12 years for $7,500 to $10,000; 15 years for $10,000 to $20,000; 20 years for $20,000 to $40,000; 25 years for $40,000 to $60,000; and 30 years for $60,000 and above.) The reduced monthly payment may make the loan easier to repay for some borrowers. However, by extending the term of a loan the total amount of interest paid is increased.
In certain circumstances (for example, when one or more of the loans was being repaid in less than 10 years because of minimum payment requirements), a consolidation loan may decrease the monthly payment without extending the overall loan term beyond 10 years. In effect, the shorter-term loan is being extended to 10 years. The total amount of interest paid will increase unless you continue to make the same monthly payment as before, in which case the total amount of interest paid will decrease. The interest rate on consolidation loans is the weighted average of the interest rates on the loans being consolidated, rounded up to the nearest 1/8 of a percent and capped at 8.25%.
Contact your loan company. They are the ones who can answer that for you.
I am glad you asked and that this question is still open. You guys probably have a lot of student debt between you, huh. As of August 1st president obama has started a wipe your debt program called IBR i suggest you look it up. I will sum it up for you. If you dedicate the next ten years of your life to any public service occupation…. health..law…education…police.. whatever… your monthly payments are GONE… have a few kids….read up on it… by the way… 50% of marriages fail.. do you really wanna go through the mess of dividiing it back up later on???
If you are thinking for consolidating federal loans together, you cannot anymore. As of 7/1/06 or 7/1/07, I am not positive on the date, but the government pull the plug on that program. If you are asking about private loans you will need to contact your lenders to see if you can. You can consolidate individually, must lenders are not offering it right now but Direct Loans (loans direct from the government) is still offering federal consolidation loans. The link is below.
No, Effective July, 1 2006 a married couple may no longer obtain a Federal Consolidation Loan as joint borrowers. Why not you ask? When married students consolidated their loans together, each spouse became responsible for the full amount of the loan, and the loans could not be separated if the couple got divorced. To avoid such problems, Congress decided to repeal this provision as part of the Higher Education Reconciliation Act of 2005.
Thats too bad you can combine them. Because my husband is joining the military, and so I guess they will just pay back his loans and not mine. Oh well. $12,000 paid, $15,000 to go.