welcome to the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony uva and today we're going to get some insight and so financial consolidation my guest today is the vice president of wells fargo the division market manager his marie's benson and welcome to the show thank you glad to be here no problem so usually we start out i guess because you been a guest already where did you go to college i went to the university of texas at austin  so let's go back a little bit in time and go into your background on how you got there before we get into finance ok so when did you start thinking about college was it freshman year of high school or was it senior year of high school good question made my household my both my parents went to college and so that was one of the things that even probably in eighth or ninth grade it was pretty much driven into both me and my sisters had  were going to go to college ok so it was the process was i mean started pretty early on honestly when i was maybe in seventh or eighth grade i thought i was going to go to school in arizona for a while then i thought i'm going to go to going to be a good fit my dad at the time was a was a ministry at texas a and m university and so we ruled that one out which is kind of an interesting interesting conversation but from my dad perspective he felt like f me staying at home wouldn't have been a growth opportunity so he just thought let's just not put that in the mix so we don't have to have that as be part of the conversation but most people think that's different but it was right i mean i i needed to get away to go to school so how did you pick university of texas so we went around on a little road trip and went to university to right university in houston university of texas in austin we came out east  to georgetown which was on my list for sure went to oberlin went to arizona state university which again and another one on my list so i went to look at all those i and applying to three of them in applying to overland georgetown and university of texas academics and when it when it got to got down to it i got lucky enough to get a full academic scholarship to the university of texas so that made that choice relatively easy know that you have that at the open schools as well i got offered scholarships to the other two but none as comprehensive as university of texas so i got lucky i didn't have any out of pocket costs to go to university texas wow that's really mean go yeah a lot of parents out there right now to get the money for know i was lucky you know and so all those years of i guess studying in high school paid off and and part of it was also it wasn't just all the it wasn't it was a great point average but from my understanding it was the clubs and all the other stuff the extra curricular stuff i did that that really helped so yeah so so it's an all round type of person that's what i thought i was looking for yeah that's what i was told i don't know for sure but that's what it was passed on to me good so now everyone team we help families and students find resources to help pay for their college education ok and so no college education costs an average of around thirty six thousand dollars these days the most  sources out there are saying right so what are some of the what are some of the things that you hear from families why they're looking for loans right so what i would say is this  families are usually coming to us looking for resources because they don't necessarily understand all the options that are available to them and they were there waiting to the last minute to find out what the options are that tends to be the most common comments that we get when they come to us as and what do we offer we don't know what's available we don't know how to handle this part of it what usually happens is there is a of a bill that's sent to the family from the university and therefore they receive some form of financial aid but then there's a gap that's not covered by fancily that they're being asked to cover and they're getting that in the you know the eleventh hour and they're not prepared not ready don't necessarily know how to cover it and the guidance is going to have to go find some resources and they are coming to us to ask what can you do what do you offer and that's where we you know we want to sit down and try to find the right resources to to help them out so what type of options do you do have some families that come there well there's all kinds of options and i would say that there's no one option that's right for every family and i think what's great about coming to us is that  we want to sit down and make sure that the option works for that family and we will what we offer loans we can offer student loans for the student themselves we can offer loans for the parent to take out in the student's name that the parent can pay back but we can also offer unvested opportunities like you know five twenty nine plans and different options like that and we can also do a combination of those if necessary so it's really about finding what resources what combination of resources works best for that particular family to make sure that in the long run that they're financially successful so now what happens when families go to school they have to take out these massive loans thirty six thousand forty thousand whatever the amount yes oh i'm now a big student comes out of school and one hundred one hundred fifty two hundred thousand those worth of loans that are out there but maybe has multiple different vendors that o or banks or institutions that have given them all of this money what what and what way are they going to consolidate these type of loans yet when this happens now and then to where you are you find a student or a family where they've gone to college and they come out and they graduate and they've borrowed or they've amassed debt from separate borrowing institutions separate lenders and so they're trying to put all those loans or put those loans together so they can make one payment usually what i would say is first the first thing you need to do and this is usually one of the first tips i would give to a family is you have to get organized first and that's you know figure out where your paperwork is and figuring out where all the loans are dot gov dot edu that's going to be the place where all of your federal loans will be housed that will show everything that you have currently where the statuses are and where you know if you borrow from the government where they were currently located in the balances so i would start there if you if you're missing any loans and you're sure you're missing someone and they're not there those are probably probably more of your private loans which means as are coming from outside an entity like a bank or a private  company in that situation you're going to probably have to go to your school first to see what records they have or i would start checking your mail and looking for statements and another comment i've always said is you know don't open your mail when it comes to you and  people sometimes don't open their mail but that's going to show where your other loans are but put all that paperwork together and start looking to see where your loans are and figuring out you know where they are and once you get there then yes and then that point you can start thinking that separate from home equity so you can do a federal consolidation loan which would be through the federal government which is a direct i guess they call direct consolidation loan and that's putting all of your federal loans together into one and you can do a private consolidation loan which would be putting all of your private loans into one or you can today you can actually put your federal and your private loans together into one group yeah so there's pros and cons and everything so you know consolidation loan basically is you're borrowing money creating one new loan and paying off all the existing ones so once you've done it you've done it all those other loans are paid off so those it doesn't lower anything so at this point you know if you're creating one new loan one new balance so inherently just that one balance  and now we're calculating you know payments off that inherently that'll lower your loan then depending on the balance you can actually extend the payment past the normal repayment plan so a standard payment plans ten years but if you can consolidate you can actually take it out past ten years in some plans and some programs depending on the ballot and the loan type you can take it up to twenty five years so you can lower the payment the con sometimes when you extend the repayment plan out past ten years you are going to pay more in the long run because you can pay more in interest in the long run but yes you can lower the payments too so that's part of the con so you find all of these families that are out there you know they've gone through there's downturn in the economy that ha happened to was the past five or six years and now they're in the situation where they have all of this out there with student loans what do you say to those families that have gone through all of this so i'd say that you know that the best thing to do is to get organized and to stay in contact and talk to your lender so we don't we want our families to be successful and we want to work with families  and fine options for them to manage the debt but if we don't know their situation if if we don't know what's going on we can't help so another tip that i would always give families is to make contact with with who you borrowed from and stay in contact with you from who you borrowed from and so when you make contact make sure we know what your phone number is what your addresses what your e mail anything like that because because we would want to reach out to you if anything we need to share with you about your loans that is pertinent you know we want to get into contact with you but also you want to stay in contact with us and if you're in a situation where you are having some issues possibly making that payment then the you reach out to us and the more we know that gives us the more options to help you handle it and we have options and we will we definitely can help you you know make those payments and stay current now some students what's the process with the students when they graduate there are families that have told me it's a six month grace period a year there are ones that the for two three four years down the road what's the difference between all of this that's going on so that you're talking about the grace period and it depends on the loan it depends on the loan program the loan type so the grace period is a period after you graduate or separate from university before your first payments do it can be anywhere between six months to nine months it just on it just really depends on the loan or the loan type some loans go into immediate repayment so there is actually not a grace period and so this goes back to my you have to be organized and figure out what type of loans you have and understand what type of grace period you have because they're all different and so yes you can depending on the grace period you could have you know two or three different types of loans with two or three different types of long periods and you have to understand those are so what's the what's the consolidation process what those someone do so the consolidation process itself takes about it and again depending on the particular type it will usually take about thirty to sixty days to complete  in your best way you would you want to sit down and talk to someone about what's the best option especially if you've got federal and private loans and you're considering putting both of them together when you consolidate you are going to give up some of your benefits and some of those benefits c be any interest reductions that you have any benefits that were coming along with the federal loans in some situations from a deferment or forbearance benefit and so you want to weigh that out before you actually go into the process just so you understand what you're giving up and then from there you would you would make sure that you had all of the loans that you want to consolidate that you know where they are because once you do it you can only do it once so you can't  then you would you would cut you'd want to look around and try to find your best deal so with federal loans you can only consolidate federal loans with the federal government with private loans you can actually shop around and find the best price and find a good deal let's say put it that way and then you would turn your loans over to whoever you're going to consolidate with they're going to make a brand new loan they're going to pay off all the existing loans that that or that you have and they're going to give you a new payment booklet and a brand new and a brand new loan that's going to be just that one balance so you know what your to take on what's happening out there because you're starting to see a lot of the faults with these student loans and from what i hear out there  student loans cannot be in bankruptcy or anything like that so all these kids are out there trying to find a way of paying these things and care and so what's your take on all of that that i might not be the best person to comment not a true economist or anything like that the rules as i understand them are student loans cannot be discharged on a buy bankruptcy but you know you hear stuff all the time so what i know is what i've said that you know we from an organization what our customers to succeed financially and the more proactive a customer is about letting us know what their situations are and a willing to work with us we're willing to work with them to and we will help them make the payments and get through it that's key oh yeah very key these days especially with kids just going out there and trying to find things yeah and they care so all of these kids that are out there what are they looking at schools do you see where it's you know big division one schools are more is it the ivy league schools is it the mid size or lower schools do you see a lot of these kids going in these different directions or is it just just like you had before where you're just looking for a particular school that fits your yeah i mean i think it's in this is just my perspective on it i think it's just fed i don't know if there's any trends that we've seen from that perspective it's just fed you know should cost be a part of it depends on your situation i think you have to weigh out everything and whatever makes sense for that particular family in your particular situation is probably the best that you for you and you just have to take the time and do some research and talk to some people and you know get some help and you know figure it out but it seems like it's just you know it's got to be a good fit it's got to make sense for you and your family that's usually the best advice from someone that had a full scholarship at the college level what are some of the other things that maybe the school didn't pay for is do families look at that of they sometimes they don't write what you would want to question their is so when we talk about tuition and fees it's the fees and housing and how all of that is actually added into the prize when you're visiting a school for the first time and you're looking at the total cost a lot of times that total cost will include the housing on campus housing versus off campus housing sometimes it will not to you want to make sure that you understand what the total cost is going in and you also want to understand you know sometimes what the locals cost will be so what books and which is going to the restaurants in the area because costa livings are different depending on the city and what kind of factor that will be and as you're looking at monthly charges so if a school let's say a school was an average twenty twenty five thousand dollars for per year oh my these kids should be looking at that twenty five thousand is including the room and board yes the party could be right so the extra curricular activities that the student might have clothes are going you know you're eating off  good picture of what that looks like i would just suggest that you make sure that that is included when you're looking at it some do most do but i would you know i feel like you should always ask questions and just get clarification of what that cost is you can always ask for a breakdown from the admissions office of what those costs are and but yeah most do now how about traveling i mean some for some families you know you were university of texas but how far would you actually from home oh wow i think two hours ok that not too far so not too far so no if you went to georgetown a long way it's a pretty long way right yeah so i had friends like that where a good friend of mine who actually live in the dorm right down the road from me was an out of state student and so you  looking at the difference in cost between in state out of state so his tuition i believe was much higher than mine plus you know for holidays i was able to drive home and he pretty much stayed in the dorm because he actually didn't california and i had to his travel costs were much higher but that is something you would have to factor into so that's the part of the to wish income for hard to factor that in you're right and those are stuff that families should look at your right and just to consider you know what would have the cost how do you how do you factor that in and  that is that does that work for your for your particular situation so you know what's your what's your take on financial aid schools or are doing financial aid programs oh i'm sometimes families have to find out what the school is willing to offer what's your take on financial aid these schools because every school is different every school is different every school has its own policy and how they handle financial aid the earlier you apply the earlier you turn in your information and talk  the better chance you'll receive of getting a full package you should compare packages for sure between thousand year versus because as you said no two universities are the same i always suggest going in and talking to a financial aid counselor but it's hard to it's hard to tell your situation on a piece of paper let's say versus actually explaining it to someone in person and there's a there's there's ways that financial aid counselors once they hear that can can make adjustments and work with you to to make that financially process or that financial aid package look better than what it can on a you know by turning it in on a piece of paper but yeah there you can you should always start early apply early try to make the priority deadlines almost every university is going to have a financial a priority deadline and if you make your if you turn your information in by that priority deadline that pretty much ensures that you'll get the best package available and the loans from  banks do they have any particular timeframe or when the student gets the college they can apply for bank loans any time we would suggest when you're applying for a low a private loan from a bank that  usually i would say maybe six months out early is about the time you want to start looking and comparing that you should start doing research before that to kind of figure out which loan might be a good fit for you but you know five to six months out is probably about a good time to start applying just from a credit perspective you know but yeah five but you should start doing research before then but how long does the bearing told these families if they qualify or don't qualify as appropriate and not me and not all situations are the same but for most for most financial institutions it's a pretty quick turnaround so six months out just to know is there any the financial institutions families can look  at in different sections of the country yeah so you know there's so luckily for us we operate in all fifty states so they can if they want to come with wells we pretty much do business everywhere but some are regional and local and  they would rather do it you know business or banking with that organization they could universities will provide some universities will provide a a list or some suggestions of banks that they prefer to do business with so they can total a family can totally go that route too and ask for some help there if not there's always the internet you can do some searching there and do some research but you should really compare check price you can you can reply  different you know you can actually make applications that differently and different landing sites to a product to see what kind of pricing you would get different sites with no penalty so so how about it to the actual students do you see a lot of international students where they're applying for these type of loans so that international student can get a loan if they have an american cosigner u s cosigner but for the most part international students have to pretty much pay on their own for college if they come over here so  not as much as we are not as much as you would think but we are starting to see a lot more international students who are who are trying to apply for loans with u s cosigner to try to find alternate forms of financing because we're seeing a lot a large increase  in international student so those wells fargo in these international countries where they can they can as wells fargo for and if so personally where we offer the option of borrowing with the u s cosigner i'm as far as our numbers of international i'm not sure at the top of my head what that looks like ok so at least there we definitely offer it there out there yes oh yeah and what like i said recently i know i was reading somewhere i can't with my head but i know the number of international students has increased dramatically in the united states of the last two or three years so and there's money for them and they just have to find the right a particular venue to get mariah if they don't have difference right there we were talking about before right yeah so basically so brought him back because a lot of people asked about consolidation of loans so what advice do you want to give to the families out there that are looking to consolidate my advice would be kind of what i was saying before you can i want to consolidate you definitely need to weigh out the pros and cons of consolidation so the pros would be you get to lower your payment and you can extend the repayment out past ten years if needed the cons might be that you might pay more on the loan because in the in the long run if you extend the payment out it might cost you more and you might give up some repayment options and benefits by consolidating but like i said there's no two situations are alike so you need to figure out what works for you and which what works for your best situation and then make that decision it's there it's a great program and if you are able to take advantage of it i would highly suggest it but like i said if not you know it's not the right fit for everybody so just make sure