Refinancing student loans helped free my mom as a co-signer

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• My mom signed $82,000 in private and federal student loans and our relationship was pretty much ruined.
• After eight years of paying student loans and getting my credit back, I was finally eligible to refinance my student loans.
• Refinancing a student loan also means that you can get your mother out of the loan by co-sponsoring it.
• Find suitable student loan refinance rates on Credible.

In college, my mom guaranteed $82,000 worth of federal and private student loans. Neither of us really knew what we were doing at the time.

My family moved to America from the Philippines in 2003. My mother was a constant supporter of my creative endeavours, so she guaranteed my student loans.

Eight years after graduating, student loans alone cost $670 a month, most of which is interest. To be fair, I didn’t make payments consistently for all of those eight years.In his last year and a half when federal student loan payments were suspended, I paid the minimum I was able to afford the monthly payments.

After getting my credit back, I finally qualified to refinance privately funded student loans totaling $64,000. Refinancing a federal student loan means losing any future chances of getting federal student loan forgiveness, but I’m doing a private loan refinance.

Below are three productive and healing conversations I had with my mother while considering my options.

first i told her about mathematics

My mother is a data analyst with a strong math background and a statistics degree in college, but I felt I had to tackle this problem myself. I opened an application on her SoFi and Laurel Road to compare the interest rates and terms with what I was currently paying and calculate how much I would have to pay before the loan ended.

Please note that these numbers below are for me and my specific loan. Different borrowers will likely get different figures.

It was a great wake-up call for me to learn that refinancing could save me up to $84,000 over the life of the loan. In addition to paying a lower interest rate and shortening the term of the loan, an added benefit is that it frees my mother as a co-guarantor.

My mother encouraged me to choose the most realistic payment plan

Over the past year, my mom has helped me pay off my $230 monthly student loan.

While the math clearly shows that you could save $15,000 to $20,000 over the life of the loan by choosing a shorter repayment plan, my mom opted for a 20-year refinance on Laurel Road. It was recommended to me. I can afford it.

She told me to choose the most manageable monthly payment so that I wouldn’t be intimidated. I got

I’m kicking myself for not having this conversation with her when I signed my student loans 12 years ago, but I don’t want to judge my past decisions with today’s knowledge. It’s unfair and unkind to my old self.

We discussed the implications of removing her as a cosigner.

During our conversation my mother kept saying. Married Less money to pay. Married Get a lower interest rate.” I asked her, “Why do you keep saying us?

My mother responded by saying, “I am emotionally attached to this because I know your quality of life will change a lot when these student loans are gone.” When I read to her how much we would pay if we kept our current payment terms, my mom and I agreed that the student loan system was predatory.

“If only I had money back then,” she told me, and so that they could do what they wanted in life. “