Hi all. I recently graduated from college and my loans now will need to begin being paid. I dont know much about loans and was very dumb when I took these out didnt really think much into it. Both are private loans, and my parents had to cosign. I deferred the interest and first payments for 6 months after I graduate. Here are the details:

American Education Services NCT ALPLN loan: $13,013.01 balance (no interest rate listed)

Chase student loan: $10,569.85 with I think a variable interest rate thats at 8.3% as of now.

Ok so does anyone know if I can/should consolidate these two loans into one, just to make things easier?

Also what exactly is an ALPLN loan?

Also what types of payment terms are available? And which would be best for me as a poker player (kind of like a commission based job we can assume) I want to periodically(maybe once every 3-5 months) make large payments of like 1k-4k depending on how its going, this would be smarter right? so any help or guidance would be appreciated. Thank you.

re: the 2nd question, your loan will typically have a maximum length it can be paid off in. they will require a 12*#years in monthly payments with the amount equaling the total of the loan with interest. you can always pay more than the monthly minimum though

not sure when the new legislation kicks in and haven'pt really checked too much into it but there's something nowadays that alleviates the student from having to pay off his entire loan since its based on a % of his income so you may want to look into that to see the details on how it works, might benefit you as a poker player

Its called Income Based Repayment. It limits your loan payment to 15% of the difference between your adjusted gross income and the poverty line for your family size. In order to be eligible, your scheduled payment must be more than the 15% of agi number.

You can roll over your loans into a government program and also apply for IBR at the following address.

http://loanconsolidation.ed.gov/

Only prob with this is that you have to verify income with the IRS annually, so as a prof poker player it would be more shaky and you would prob have to file quarterly taxes as an independent contractor type.

I just finished school, have ~130k in loans from 10 different loans, and this program is gonna keep me from living on the street if I cant find a 100k job right now (lols 100k).

More IBR and gov consolidation info available here: http://www.ibrinfo.org/

OP
I know a couple of people who are taking classes at a JC just so they don't have to repay their loans.

One friend is taking a Photoshop class, fencing and weight training.