My son has over $70,000 in student loans all taken prior to 2010.  $40,000 in Direct Loans, $30,000 in Sallie Mae Signature loans.  Can Sallie Mae loans and Direct Loans be consolidated?

Some loans that Sallie Mae has are federal loans while others are private.  Sallie Mae Signature loans are private loans (yuck!) and cannot be consolidated into Direct Loans.

Darn it! That’s not really what I was wanting to hear. I would love to consolidate my loans, but I’m pretty sure that a large portion of them are direct loans. How can I figure this out for sure?

Hello Rick.  Hopefully this answers your question…

It’s always important to start by figuring out exactly what kind of loans you have and what the “status” is of your loans (http://askheatherjarvis.com/blog/where-are-my-student-loans).  You can look up your federal loans on the National Student Loan Data System at http://www.nslds.ed.gov/nslds_SA/.  You will need a PIN issued by the Department of Education that you can get at http://www.pin.ed.gov/PINWebApp/pinindex.jsp.  You should find any private student loans listed on your credit report at https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp.

Income-Based Repayment can help a lot of people with federal student loans.  Private students loans are another matter; read more about options for dealing with those pesky private loans here: http://www.studentloanborrowerassistance.org/understand-loans/private-student-loans/

As for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, borrowers earn forgiveness by making payments.  A borrower has to make the right kind of payments, on the right kind of loans, while working in the right kind of job.  For more about that, start by reading through Public Service Loan Forgiveness in 5 Easy Steps and the other one-pagers on our tools page (http://askheatherjarvis.com/tools) under Essential Tools for Student Loan Borrowers.

Hope this helps!

Best,

James Jarvis
Communications Director
Student Loan Expert LLC