Have you ever received a piece of mail asking you immediately to call about your student loans? Or, have you ever filled out an online student loan consolidation form? If so, you still may be eligible to save thousands of dollars on your student loans and cut your monthly payments by 60 percent.

As of July 1, 2006, student loan borrowers who did not get a chance to consolidate their outstanding student loans felt the impact of the interest rate increase. Federal student loan interest rates on July 1, 2006 increased by 39 percent (a 1.84 percentage point increase), which drastically increased payments for borrowers who did not meet the consolidation deadline.

Incomplete Applications

The U.S. Department of Education allowed student loan borrowers to lock in the significantly lower pre-July 1, 2006 interest rates by submitting an application for consolidation before the deadline. However, due to the enormous demand this year for student loan consolidation, many student loan borrowers were unable to finish their consolidation application in time. This resulted in an increase in monthly payments and thousands of dollars in extra interest costs for student loan borrowers who missed the consolidation deadline. However, there is good news for those who did not fully complete their consolidation application in time.

Many student loan borrowers prior to July 1, 2006 responded to a piece of mail immediately directing them to call about their student loans ( http://www.nextstudent.com) and then partially completed an application. This past year there also were borrowers who submitted a partially completed online application before the deadline. Since these borrowers did not sign the application they suspected they were ineligible for the lower interest rates.

Act Now to Receive Lower Interest Rates

For example, federal student loan consolidation (http://www.nextstudent.com/consolidation_loans/consolidation_loans.asp) provider NextStudent has countless partially completed applications from incoming callers and online inquiries that were started before the July 1, 2006 deadline. These applications were completed yet lack a signature; therefore, those borrowers are eligible to receive the pre-July 1, 2006 interest rates. In order to receive a lower rate, borrowers must act now and call NextStudent to sign their application. The Department of Educations extension most likely will expire by December 2006, which does not give borrowers much time to act.

To check and see if you are eligible for the pre-July 1, 2006 interest rates and save thousands of dollars on your student loans, immediately contact NextStudent at 1-800-299-4639 or online at http://www.nextstudent.com.

This article was posted on November 20, 2006