I’m still a student, surprise surprise, and any way for me to keep my loans down is a plus. I came across this in my inbox about lowering my loans. I was interested, so I thought that I would pass on the information. I know I sound like some SPAM email but honestly this economy is not that great and it’s always nice to save money some how. Essentially the site helps you build a better way to help you save and not miss loan payments and keep you on track to paying your loans. Plus the name of the site sounds like a video game!
Check out the full press release below.
Student Loan Hero is launching today to help 37 million student loan borrowers manage over $1 trillion in outstanding loan debt. Using a combination of bank level data aggregation and socio-economic recommendations, Student Loan Hero can save you $5,000 and get you out of debt 2 years faster.
The start-up is the brainchild of three global entrepreneurs, who discovered borrowers are increasingly having trouble repaying their student loans. Last year, federal student debt rose to more than $867 billion, and around 15% of borrowers defaulted according to the Kojo Nnamdi Show (May 2012). In March of this year, the Financial Post reported that about 5 million federal education-loan borrowers are in default.
For co-founder Andrew Josuweit, Student Loan Hero is also tackling a personal problem. After graduating with $104,000 in debt spread across 12 loans and 4 different companies, Josuweit quickly realized how frustrating and confusing student loan repayment can be.
Josuweit said, “Many students aren’t conscious about how much debt they accrue while in school and also how to manage the debt once they graduate. Our mission is to help students strategically organize their loans to save money and get out of debt faster – without the frustration of dealing with a bank or college.”
With dozens of federal and private loan programs available, it can be difficult to understand the pros and cons, as well as what programs you are eligible for. Student Loan Hero highlights all of the available programs to a borrower based of off the information they provide upon sign-up.
When a user signs up, Student Loan Hero connects to private banks and the National Student Loan Data System in order to retrieve a borrower’s loan data. Once the loan data has been found and added to the platform, a user can adjust their monthly payments to develop a repayment strategy that fits their situation. A user can then check back in on a monthly basis to keep tabs on their progress and see any new notifications or updates to their student loans.
Co-founder Evan Shoemaker said, “On average, our strategies can help borrowers save close to $5,000 over the lifetime of their loan repayment and get out of debt 2 years faster. Also, we can help students restructure their private loans with loan consolidation if it makes sense for the particular borrower.”
With the average college student now graduating with over $25,000 in student loans, it looks like we will only continue to see more companies attempting to lower the cost of education. If you have student loans, Student Loan Hero is looking for early adopters to test out the tool and give feedback. So go ahead, create an account and start saving your hard earned moola!
