I have like 10 friggin student loans that are all in default/collections/younameit. So I just filled out the paperwork to consolidate those loans.. so I was wanting to know from people who have been through this before...
WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT FROM HERE?

I applied for the income contigent way of paying back the loan.

any stories and information you wanna share would be great!


PEACE

continue to pay your loans on time. within 6-8 weeks you will receive notice and a new payment booklet.

WHOA!! Okay, is this your first step in the process after defaulting? Are these government-backed loans? Did you go through rehabilitation on these loans first? Rehabilitation is a program whereby you make 12 monthly, on-time reasonable payments on the loans to the CA or whoever holds your loans and, after that, they will take your loans out of default status and remove the default notation from your credit reports. Many will also remove ALL of the negative information from the account (all of the lates, etc. -- the U.S. Department of Education encourages all of them to do this as well as removing the default notation, but they don't have to). If you didn't do this yet, I would STRONGLY encourage you to look into this first (there's a ton of info on rehab on this forum and lots of us have gone through it. It may be too late , depending on how long ago you sent in your paperwork, and you may find that it doesn't work with your situation, but, if you can possibly ask them about it, I would -- they're required to offer it to you if you ask, but I don't think they're required to bring it up first -- it does seem like some sort of secret password you're supposed to know before they'll let you in on all of the "insider" information!! The problem is, I don't believe you can rehab the loans after you consolidate.

Otherwise, if you do end up consolidating now, tootie is right. I didn't receive a payment booklet, though -- I just get a monthly statement. As do almost all consolidation lenders, mine offers a 0.25% interest reduction if I pay through auto-debit, so I don't even write the check to them.

Anyway, good luck and I hope this helps!!

huh.. interesting... I have not paid on them at all.. however I do have some checks written.. perhaps I should just blindly send them off.(?).
Are there different companys that you can consolidate with? am I supposed to be shopping around for the best rate or somthing? I belive that I have recieved several things in the mail telling/asking me to consolidate at different rates.. I think I'm confused.
should I call them and say the rehab word?

sorry i wasnt very clear. i went through defaults and stuff but i was able to consolidate. and all of my balances on the other loans are now zero. then the consolidated loans went back into deferment. so i'm not sure about your situation, but this was all through sallie mae. i consolidated after bk7. now it seems as if some of my loans from 95 were discharged in bk7. so i dont know but my situation is a little different from yours. but all i did was call them up then they told me to apply on the sallie mae website. my only concern was that not all of my loans showed late payments and it appears that eq removed the lates but i am waiting to get the results from tu as far as the lates are concerned.

yeah, well I didn't think that student loans were allowed in bk's.. I would have done that years ago if that were the case.. anywho....I guess I will just have to wait it out and see.. I think I'll send those checks out tho... perhaps that will speed up the process a bit.

Rehabilitation is available only for defaulted government-backed loans. It is something that you would need to talk to them about, though, to come up with an agreed-upon amount. So, before you send them any money, you may want to call whoever is currently holding your loans and talk to them about it (and, if you’re interested in rehab, I’d do it ASAP before your consolidation stuff goes through). And you’re right, SLs are not eligible for discharge in BK, although I think that came about around 1995 or so.

If you’re in default when you consolidate your loans, you MUST choose the income-contingent option. Strangely, this amount may be higher than the amount that you can finally agree on for rehabilitation (it was for me). I’ve heard a lot of people here say that their rehab amount was for about 1% of the total amount due (so, for example, $100/mo on a $10,000 amount due).

Have you talked to the holder(s) of your loans at all or did you just send in the consolidation paperwork because you had it (that’s not meant to be as judgemental as I think it may have come off when re-reading that sentence – I would have done the exact same thing!!!)? Regardless of whether or not you’re interested in rehab, you probably should talk to them if you haven’t before. And, yes, there are many different consolidation lenders. Fla-Tan links to one that he likes in the sticky above. There are usually some interest concessions given for things like auto-debit (like I mentioned before) and also after some number of on-time payments (with my lender, it’s after 24 payments, but I’ve seen anywhere from 12-48). Some states also give other incentives.

Again, I hope this helps you – I know that the world of SL default can be extremely confusing!!! Good luck!!!