Many people think they cannot afford a college education. While there is no doubt that higher education is costly, student loans can put the dream within reach. Here are some suggestions to get you started.
Know the specifics about your loan. You should always know how much you owe and to whom. Additionally, you should be aware of your repayment obligations. These facts will determine your loan repayment and forgiveness options. This information is essential to creating a workable budget.
Private Student Loans
Don’t eschew private student loans for financing a college education. Public student loans are highly sought after. There’s much less competition for private student loans, with small pockets of money sitting around untapped from lack of attention. See if you can get loans for the books you need in college.
There are two steps to approach the process of paying off student loans you have taken out. First, ensure you make all minimum monthly payments. After that, pay extra money to the next highest interest rate loan. It’ll help limit your spend over a given time.
If you plan to prepay your loans, try to pay those with the highest interest rates first. You definitely want to pay down the ones with the highest interest rate, because taking care of the lower ones could cause you to end up paying more money.
Grace Period
Pay attention to how long the grace period is after your graduation before you student loan has to be repaid. Stafford loans offer a period of six months. For Perkins loans, you’ll have a nine month grace period. Other loans vary. Know what you have to pay when, and pay on time!
Which payment option is your best bet? Many loans offer a decade-long payment term. If this won’t work for you, there may be other options available. You might get more time with higher interest rates. You may have to pay a certain part of your income after you get some work. The balances on some student loans have an expiration date at 25 years.
Student Loans
Pay off student loans in interest-descending order. The highest rate loan should be paid first. Whenever you have a little extra money, put it towards your student loans to pay them off as fast as possible. Paying quicker than expected won’t penalize you in any way.
You should try to pay off the largest loans first. If you don’t owe that much, you’ll pay less interest. Focus on paying the largest loans off first. When you pay off one loan, move on to the next. When you make minimum payments on each loan and apply extra money to your biggest loan, you get rid of the debts from your student loans systematically.
Payments for student loans can be hard if you don’t have the money. You can minimize the damage a little with loan reward programs. For example, check out the LoanLink and SmarterBucks programs from Upromise. These are similar to programs that give cash back. When you spend, you get rewards that you can use on loans.
You can stretch your dollars further for your student loans if you make it a point to take the most credit hours as you can each semester. Full time is 9-12 hours, but you can go as high as 8. This helps to lower your loan amounts.
Particular Lender
Some schools have reasons that they may try to motivate you to go toward one particular lender to get a student loan. They may have a deal with a private lender and offer them use of the school’s name. This is really quite misleading. The school might get money if you choose a particular lender. Understand the terms of the loan before you sign the papers.
Don’t finance your whole college education by using student loans. Try and save money wherever you can, looking into grants or scholarships to help with the cost. You can use a variety of websites that will tell you what scholarships or grants you’re eligible to receive. Start looking early so that you’ll find the best information and assistance.
When completing the application for financial aid, be sure to avoid making any errors. Accurately filling out this form will help ensure you get everything you are qualified to get. If you have any questions about filling out the application, talk to experts on financial aid from your college.
As stated in the above article, due the school being very expensive, it is very important that you understand how to get a student loan. If you know what you are doing, there is no reason to fear a loan. Be sure to use these tips when dealing with financial aid.
This is a limited-time offer. We are not able to guarantee availability if you wait!
