Q: My wife and I owe $45,000 on two loans for our son’s college education. The interest is 5 percent on a loan of about $33,750 and 8 percent on a loan of about $11,250. We’re thinking of paying them off with a home equity loan or line of credit, which would give us a tax deduction on interest payments. I am retired and do a little consulting. My wife works part time. What do you think?

A: It doesn’t seem to me that you’d save anything with this maneuver.

You probably can get a home equity line of credit charging about 6 percent, while a home equity installment loan would be about 7.5 percent. The line of credit is a variable rate that could rise or fall in the future, while the installment loan charges a rate fixed for the life of the loan. Neither would save you anything on the 5 percent loan that makes up the bulk of your college debt.

With the smaller loan, you’d hardly save anything by using a home equity installment loan, merely cutting the rate from 8 percent to 7.5 percent.

By using the line of credit to cut the rate to 6 percent, you could save $225 a year. But it doesn’t seem worth it given the risk that new loan could someday charge more than 6 percent.

What about the tax deduction available on the home equity loans?

Tax deductions are more valuable to people in high tax brackets than to those in lower ones. If you were in the top federal income tax bracket charging 35 percent, every dollar you paid in interest on a home equity loan would save you 35 cents in taxes.

But if you’re in, say, the 15 percent tax bracket, the tax saving is much smaller – too small to affect your decision in this case.

Also, you may be eligible for a tax deduction on your student loan payments. For 2006, the maximum deduction is $2,500 for individuals with incomes below $50,000 or couples with incomes less than $105,000.

By my calculation, your interest on these two loans was just a tad over $2,500. (See IRS Publication 970 for details.)

So I don’t see much point in borrowing against your home to pay off these student loans, though you might try to scrounge up some cash to pay off the 8 percent loan early.