Student Loan Details

Quicken Community

I am trying to set up all of my student loans in Quicken 2018 (v R7.5, build 21.1.7.5). When I go to add the loan details I cannot get past the first screen without entering the length of the loan and the payment amount. Student loans are different from regular loans in that they can be in deferment and don't necessarily have a fixed length. 

Why does Quicken give you the option to say that your loan is a student loan if it won't treat the loan any differently than regular loans? Student loans are very common and Quicken should add features in the "Add Loan Details" that are specific to student loans. This would make the experience much better.

wtbivings

I would also like to know the answer to this question

NotACPA

No one in this Community, which is overwhelmingly other users, can answer "Why" type questions.

And,  the few Moderators (who are Quicken employees) probably can't answer them either.

UKR

I think, the original poster's question about tracking student loans in Quicken deserves some further thought. Someone with long-term experience in student loans should invent a better way to create and manage them in Quicken. The current way is a joke, a bad one.

Jeff Schwarz

Also, (a year later and in a more recent version of Quicken) student loans aren't compound interest, but "Compounding Period" of the Loan Details window only has choice for Daily, Monthly, Semi-annually. SMH

jaken

Hey! Two years later and still, student loans require a loan length. Almost every person who uses Quicken will likely have student loans, I don't understand why this isn't high priority.

Sasdas

Before buying a year of the Quicken subscription, I tried a disc for 2013 quicken delux I found. Had trouble with my student loans as the form I filled the information in didn't match the style of my loan, and thought "hmm, I should probably upgrade because these are critical debts that I absolutely want to keep track of". Well, the loan page in the software almost 10 years later is virtually unchanged and the student loan feature is just as incompatible. I know the Quicken team knows that private student loans aren't similar to a regular car loan or something so I wonder what's holding them back because this is something that a great deal of users would benefit from. I can't say I see the value in a financial planning software that can work with my meager income, savings, and investments, but gets tripped up at the biggest debts I have in my life. What works is great, but this is a real stumbling block for me.

UKR

Until the Quicken programmers get a round tuit and add a Student Loan Tracking Feature to Quicken I would suggest that you treat each of your Student Loan accounts as if it was an "offline" (manual) credit card account.
Record and track any interest charges or other fees added to the account, based on any monthly statements you receive.
Record any payments you make just like other credit card payments as a transfer from checking to the Student Loan account.

2leo

I'm surprised this is still an issue. With repayments starting in a few months, I'm trying to enter my student loan info, and even if I can fake it through most of the screens, Quicken still wants to assign an asset to the loan. So I have to cancel entering it. Is it really that difficult to update Quicken to handle student loans? Until then, I'll be using UKR's suggestion.

Sisyphus1967

When my student loan came out of forbearance, the eventual end date of the loan did not update. Consequently the loan shows as ending about 2 years early with a large balloon payment due. Since there is an actual loan type for Student Loan you should be able to indicate non-payment windows as well as interest-only windows or IDR plans so that the planning is correct for the loan.

[Merged Post]