My wife and I consolidated our student loans about 3-4 years ago, with a private company. It seems over the past two weeks we are now getting 1-2 calls a day, and about that many mail pieces telling us about reconsolidating. We tell them no, we already consolidated, we can’t do it again (we’d consider it as our current rate, with all the deductions now applied, is 5.25%. Though the rate isn’t terrible, and so I’m not losing much sleep over it, especially with the interest deduction).
One company assures us that they changed the rules, and even though we already consolidated from the government to a private company, and even though we did not go back to school and gotten any new loans, we can definitely “refinance” the loans.
I have their website, and am considering it, if it’s possible (better interest rate, cash back bonus for starting up a new loan, in addition to the regular perks, direct debit reduction, ontime payment reduction, etc). My main question is, I can’t find anything from the Dept. of Education that says you can reconsolidate if you already have once. It was stressed to me many times in the past that once you take your federal loans and consolidate them privately, that’s it.
Has anything changed? I thought I heard something a few months ago about them considering it, but I haven’t turned up anything.