Student loan deferrment approved (but not requested)

[fragglebock]

My loan provider emailed me to cheerfully say that my student loans are deferred until May 2015.  Except I didn't contact them to ask for that to happen.

Turns out, there's a clearinghouse that provides data to verify college enrollment.  I'm in 2 graduate classes this semester, which puts me back in the 'current student' category.  They put my loans in deferrment automatically.

It comes with a .5% drop in the interest rate and payments are optional. If I continue regular payments the loan will be gone before the deferrment ends. So, I guess I just got a surprise temporary loan modification.  Not too shabby.

[nawhite]

Had a similar situation but much less positive. My wife started taking graduate classes so Sallie Mae put all of her loans in deferred status and cancelled our automatic debit. Because we got an interest rate discount for being enrolled in automatic debit, our rate went UP when they put her loans in deferred status. I was NOT happy with them. Fortunately one phone call fixed it but we still didn't realize what had happened for a month.

At least we can leave the "Subsidized" loans in deferred status because the interest on those is paid by the government while they are deferred. 0% loans with no minimum monthly payment are pretty nice.