A Reprieve on Student Loans

You can lock in the new rate by waiting until after July 1 and consolidating your loans into a single loan with a fixed rate.

Student borrowers who still have federal Stafford loans with variable interest rates (those issued before July 2006) just got good news.

Your interest rate -- one rate applies if you start payments during your six-month grace period; a slightly higher one applies if you start repayment thereafter -- will go down by several percentage points as of July 2008 and will stay at that level until July 2009.

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Jane Bennett Clark
Senior Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
The late Jane Bennett Clark, who passed away in March 2017, covered all facets of retirement and wrote a bimonthly column that took a fresh, sometimes provocative look at ways to approach life after a career. She also oversaw the annual Kiplinger rankings for best values in public and private colleges and universities and spearheaded the annual "Best Cities" feature. Clark graduated from Northwestern University.