Stray Loans After Consolidation

All your loans are finally consolidated. Big sigh of relief—only one loan

payment to make. Time to pop the cork! But hold on to that little piece

of wood because you may need to put it back in the bottle for another

60 days. Why? One or more student loans were lost in the shuffle and

left out of the consolidation. How might this happen?

When you filled out your consolidation paperwork, you didn’t list

one or more of your loans. You may have forgotten about one or more

of your loans or didn’t know about them, or you compiled the list of

student loans from your paperwork for the loans you know about and

are making payments on, but forgot one of your bills.

The other way you could end up with one loan outside of consolidation

is through computer or human error. Double-check all of your

paperwork before consolidation. Also follow up with the new servicer

within a week or two of consolidating to make sure they show all of your

loans included in the process.

You may be able to catch the stray loan and get it into the consolidation

before the consolidation is complete. But if you don’t, you can

reconsolidate your loans, as discussed in the next section