Advice needed on Student loans

Silark

I love this site and used i a lot to get my debts down before I emigrated to the USA. I married an American and wanted to be debt free with some savings before i moved. I did manage to get my debts all paid off with the exception of one which is my student loans. I am now in a dilema and do not know what to do with regards paying this back. The main thing that makes it complicated for me is the exchange rate.

My wife is of the mind that I should be taking a loan out here to pay my 5,500 pounds off in one go which will translate to approximately $10000 loan. I just do not know what to do for the best as I could start paying it off monthly but that is going to be a pain getting the money from here to there. I also know that if the exchange rate goes in my favour I could end up paying less but the reverse is true if the exchange
rate worsens for me. Any input or ideas would be much appreciated.

Also they do not know I have emigrated and I have not made any payments on the load so far, i have just been defering the loan but come april i do not know if this is going to be possible again hence the post.

Thanks in advance

wydsiwyrg

Hi Silark.
I don't mean to be harsh - just talking from my point of view.
I think it would be an extremely silly decision to take a loan to cover the student loan. Student loan interest rate is currently 4.5%, whereas in the current climate in America - I'm assuming the interest rate for lending is much higher. Also you're looking at at least $11000 after fees, if not more.

My brother keeps open an account in the UK to pay off his student loan. If you call up the student loans company they will give you a UK sort code and account number and reference to pay into your student loans account. You can then manually pay into your student loan and pay it off that way.

The pound is currently dropping against the dollar heavily, and some say has just finished a dead cat bounce - in which case we could see a heavy drop (last 3 days it has dropped 3 cents, that's not coincidence!)

So, my advice is - get a British bank account (Nationwide are good for dealing with foreign currencies); transfer money via BACS from your US account to British account (this will have a small fee and less favorable exchange rate, you can also do it with a cheque deposit; which with Nationwide has a flat 6.50 fee). Then do a bank transfer using online banking to the student loans company.

Hope this helps,
Tim