Student Loan Debt with Nelnet - Can You Move to Another Provider?

When my husband and I married 11 years ago, he had a student loan with Nelnet that he was paying off. After a few years of marriage, I took over paying the bills each month and soon realized that paying the minimum payment each month (over $200), we were mostly paying interest and there seemed to be no reduction to the principle. I was hot, too! So I took one (or two) credit card offers with 0% interest for 12-16 months and I transferred the balance. When the 0% offer was up, I transferred the balance to another card with 0% interest. We have had to put other things on these cards as well over the years, but we are now down to a balance that will be paid off this year!!! It's definitely worth a try. Best of luck to you!

Usually student loans are the lowest interest rate debts you have, so you pay off higher rate debts first.
If you qualified for a %1 reduction you probably had to do something in order to get it applied - they are not going to just do it for you.
If your credit card interest rates are higher - if you have more than one, try to consolidate them so you have one payment to deal with (besides the student loan) and then try to add an extra amount each month to go towards the principal.
We paid off our car loans, student loans and our first house that way.
We didn't go anywhere for vacation for about 5 years.
Once the debt was gone, the savings really started to add up quickly.

It really depends on the balance and the term why you have paid so little of the principle. Look at a mortgage, the first ten years of a thirty year you pay mostly interest and if your payment is late it is all interest.

So far as changing providers go I have found you will lose the low interest rate. For some reason my student loans are held by three different services.

What I would suggest if you want to pay them off quicker is increase what you pay. Everything above the usual payment goes straight to principle and the faster that goes down the less interest you pay.

I did the credit card thing. I paid it off with a card that had 0% for a year. That helped make a big dent.

The trick is then to not use the card for other purchases because than those purchases, unless paid off the first month (additional to the base payment) won't be paid off until the 0% transfer is paid off.

you need to figure out what the term of your loan is - are you supposed to pay it off in 20 years? 25? if you shorten the length, your monthly payments will increase but more of it will be going to the principal, not the interest. you could also just keep the length that you have now but when you pay more than the minimum, you probably have to write a letter asking that they apply the extra $ you're paying towards the principal and not the interest or they'll automatically apply it to interest. you'll have to really look at your contract...good luck. i hate student loans :(

Nelnet keeps bugging me - guess daughter isn't paying on hers! UGH! I didn't make the darn mess and really do NOT like them keeping asking me about her - I don't know if she's working or not or where, etc ... I have plenty just taking care of the grand!!

wish I had advice as I have a Nelnet loan as well and seems it's never going to be paid off. ugh.....will be following your post!

Check into the William D Ford program to consolidate your student loans, they also have low interest.

We have Nelnet as well and it's a bear. The above program was referred to us, though I haven't had a chance to seriously look into it yet.
http://www2.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/DirectLoan/index.html

I will tell you that the 4% interest is pretty good. My husband couldn't get any lower than 6% and has a huge payment. I have a loan with Nelnet and my interest is 2% and a low payment we can afford and have been paying on it for awhile now. But I know it would take me awhile to pay it off. They have been good to work with when things get tight to put the payment on hold. Good luck to you if you do move it to a credit card that you don't get stuck and start paying interest. I would just suggest keeping it where it is and paying more if you can because if you needed to put payments on hold you could. On a credit card you wouldn't be able to. Good luck, bills suck but we all have them.

Hate to break it to you, but these days, 4% is really good for student loans. And as far as debt goes, there isn't necessarily a "secret", other than, spend less money, make more money, and pay extra on payments as much as you possibly can. We have loans through Nelnet as well. Chances are pretty good that anyplace you "move" your debt to is going to have a much higher interest rate. I think you are totally doing the right thing by concentrating on credit card debt, because I'm sure your interest rates are much higher on those. Loans are a pain. When my husband and I got married, we had over $70,000 in student loan debt. We're frugal people and he's a youth minister so we don't get paid much, but we're plugging away at it. We're at $30,000 now, 8 years later, but we paid extra on them whenever we could. And when we paid extra, we specified that it went towards the principle, rather than simply "paying ahead". Have you ever looked into Dave Ramsey's materials? His process for becoming debt free is awesome. It's hard though. There are plenty of things I wish we could by, but we make extra loan payments instead. I just think of that day when our student loans will be paid off, and we'll have all that extra money per month! And I guess then we'll start paying for our 3 kids to go to college, lol. Good luck!