My wife has 10k left and we have 5-6k in the bank saved up. Would it hurt my credit to try to settle with them and see if they bite on the 5-6k? What or can/will they do anything detrimental to me if I try to haggle the loan down?

Uh, why can't you just make the payments?  Would you take out a car loan and then halfway through the term expect them to say "Ok, that's enough money, keep the car and we'll forget the rest!"?

They won't haggle down the loan unless you are behind by several payments and they need to send it to collections.

They have already negotiated the price you are to pay them, and you agreed to it. Unless it looks like they're about to get screwed out of their money, they're not going to renegotiate your loan.

I work in the mortgage industry, see credit reports every day. Short answer as previous posters have said––there's probably no way you can get a discount off what you and the wife owe. If you're concerned about your credit score, you do NOT want a stafford loan to go into default. For all mortgages, it's generally a big reg flag to have delinquencies on govt debt. Plus, each month you don't pay, it'll probably hit you for 5-15 pts. Then the collection (or settling for less than you owe, which shows up as "charge-off/loss) alone will probably hit another 20-30 off.

What you CAN do, is write two checks, and pay down the principal balance, so you pay much less in interest. Basically, in this case, you're speeding up repayment.
the first check for the minimum, required loan amount.
The second one for whatever you're going to put towards paying it off. Make sure 1) you write in memo field "Apply full amount directly to principal on loan # xyzxyz," and take a photo of it, just to be safe. then send it certified mail. That way you've CYA and can document if any dispute arises. Sometimes, mortgage companies take extra payments and aply them into the future (ie, you pay extra for a few months and they view it as you pre-paying a few months ahead).

So, say you're willing to drop 5500 onto the loan, min payment is, say, 200. Write one check for 200, and then write another one for 5500.

What this will do is lower the amount of the monthly payment that goes toward interest, which means more goes towards principal (amount owed), meaning the balance on the loans go down a lot faster. Paying less interest = good.

So, unfortunately, probably no quick fix, but if you drop the cash up front, you can really speed up the repayment.

Hope this helps

Keep your commitment and pay your bills.

Student loans aren't bankruptable.  They'll just garnish your wages or tax returns at some point.

pay your loans it's such a piddly amount just pay it off.

This.

You're paying off this loan one way or another.

You just decide whether you want to pay it the way you would like or whether you want the gubmint deciding the way you're going to take it.

Oh - and unless you have cancer or something - shame on you.

Funny you say that, I don't have cancer. My wife is in remission though.

Thats why she's finally getting a degree at 28...she took off 4 years.

Did someone hold a gun to your wife's head forcing her to borrow that money?


Shouldn't you both be at an Occupy protest right now?

With some lenders this may work after the loans have changed hands multiple times....In the case of a student loan which can't be discharged through bankruptcy –– I don't think you stand a chance in hell....

Good luck regardless...