Originally Posted by
Positiveg
Yep. From what I've heard, if you pay more than your monthly payment, Sallie Mae will apply the extra amount them to future payments. If you want them to apply the extra money to principal you have to call them and specifically ask for it. They are obviously not gonna make it easy for you to pay down your balance as quickly as possible.
My loans from the State of Alaska were similar. If I paid extra, I did see the balance go down, but that also put my next payment due date further out in the future. For a long time I was autopaying about twice the minimum payment and if I looked online my next payment due date was a year out in the future. Basically, I could've not made payments for a year and everything would've been fine.
After some bonuses here at PSA I was able to finally pay that off with a lump sum.
Here's a graphic from Sallie Mae about how extra payments are applied:
