Student Stafford loan?
So i have to pick between
Sallie Mae
Chase
Wells Fargo
Fifth Third
PNC
Citizens
Regions
Wachovia
To supply my stafford loan.
All the interest rates are the same the only question is which bank would be the most secure in these trying times
Uh, P:
I’m not sure what you’re looking for in the way of “most secure”. Wachovia, of course, is already well on its way to becoming a fully intergrated part of Wells Fargo.
You need your lender to do one thing – disburse your loan. In fact, once they disburse it, almost all of these lenders are going to turn it over to Sallie Mae (or some other servicing company), anyway.
If your lender goes belly up, rest assured that its assets (money owed to them) will be taken over by another lender – that won’t affect you either – other than that you’ll get a letter in the mail saying “Hi, we’re your new lender. Here’s your payment address.”
Because the Stafford loan is a government lending program, all of the lenders that participate in the FFEL lending system make Staffords the exact same way. They even use the same Master Promissory Note – the only difference you’ll find is the name of the lender.
If you want to pick a lender because you’ll feel most comfortable knowing who your loan servicing company is going to be (who you’re going to be dealing with during those 10 years that you’re repaying the loan), go with Sallie Mae (the country’s largest ed loan servicing company), Wells Fargo or Chase, who service their own loans.
Citizens uses AES, Fifth Third and Regions use Sallie Mae, I’m not sure who PNC uses.
Honestly, it hardly matters who you get your Stafford from. It’s almost like asking which paper clip company makes the best clips. The lenders are all friendly when you pay, and nasty when you don’t. Search any of these companies, and you’ll find people complaining bitterly about how viciously they collect bad loans.
Good luck to you!
