Student Loan Payment - pay principal?

I am currently only paying the interest on my student loans (- about $400 a month, yes, I have a HUGE amount of student loans- about $170,000- with Sallie Mae) because of financial considerations. Is there anyway I can make Sallie Mae put that $400 towards the principal instead? That way, although my interest would add up, my principal would decrease. Since they don't charge interest on interest, but only on the principal, I believe this would lower my payments in the long term. I would pay off all my principal first, and then pay the interest.





I looked at Sallie Mae's website, and they said 'generally' payments go towards fees, then accrued interest, and then principal. Thus, I am assuming there maybe ways to make payments go towards the principal first.





Anyone have any experience doing this? If so, how did you go about getting this done?

Student Loan Payment - pay principal?
First of all, disregard what CarrieJ said. Scam comes to my mind. Take my Federal Student Loans and make them private loans? Yeah right.





Paying prin only payments on a student loan sounds a bit unorthodox. One capping event, like an interest rate reset, will throw off everything that you are trying to do. It sounds good in theory, but I doubt anyone would go for it. You are right, most Student Loans Servicers go Fees, Interest then Prin when processing your payment. It is a pretty standard thing.





The first thing I am going to ask is have you consolidated your loans with Sallie Mae? If not, I would think about doing so. This will get your variable rate loans into a fixed rate and extend your the term on your loan (past 120 months like the Stafford loan). They also offer a ton of repayment options, like Graduated Repayment (pay less now and as you go the monthly payment amount goes up) or ISR Income Sensitive Repayment. I don't think Sallie Mae will allow you to make prin only payments on your Federal Student or Private loans, but they will probably work out a repayment plan that will work for you.
Reply:If your payments are $400/month and you are paying only interest, then that means the interest that is due on your loans is at least $400. Sallie Mae isn't going to let you pay your principal off if you owe more interest b/c their priority is to get their money first. The only was you could make payments toward your principal would be to pay more than $400 per month. Any extra payment you make will probably automatically go toward principal. That is how most loans work, although you may want to call Sallie Mae or look over your paperwork to make sure that is the case. I'm not sure if you are paying the minimum they will allow you to pay or not, but if you can get your monthly payments lowered, then you could probably choose to pay more and those payments, as I said earlier, would most likely go to principal.