Financial meltdown has brought difficult times to everyone; students are no exception to it. College education is becoming even harder with unfriendly market place. Close to 93 lenders, who where hitherto offering Federal Family Education Loan Program have stopped the offering loans to students, making it harder to secure any kind educational funding for college education. While the Department of Education has announced increased borrowal limits for students by way of direct loans, the government has also planning to take initiative to reduce the impact of financial crunch by directing surplus finance with home loan banks towards student loan financing.

Best Place to get College Loan

Students can still get the best of student loans from various sources. Here are examples of few places from where one can get some of the best student loan deals.

• Scholarships and Financial Aid Programs – When searching for funding options, students should first explore financial aid programs like scholarships and grants that come at zero cost. Filing a FAFSA application form enables you to find a chance of obtaining federal financial aid need based programs. While you have explored the scholarship and grant options, it is important to exhaust Stafford and PLUS loan options and work study programs. If the cost of your education is met with the above options, student loans will never come into picture.
• Federal Loan Options – With relaxation offered by the Department of Education, Stafford loans are easily available to students especially those who have declared their financial need via FAFSA application. While the cost of subsidized Stafford loans is offered at a fixed rate of 6 %, unsubsidized Stafford loans are offered at 6.8%. The cost of private student loans range from 4.5% to 13%. PLUS loans are also one of the best student loan options. The loan is offered to parents of students pursuing college education. The cost of PLUS loans vary between 7.9 and 8.5%. The best place to know about the optimal federal loan options is through the college financial aid office. Not only you come to know about the federal options, but also about programs specific to students of the college or community as the case may be.
• Peer to Peer Lending – Relatively a new concept in the block, peer to peer lending is a method in which the students fill out a form in which the details about their course, college and the finance required. The form is posted over the net. Anybody visiting the site, friends, family or even investors look into the requirement and accordingly decide about funding the requirement. Once it is decided, the website posting the requirement will formalize an agreement between the parties. The cost of borrowing varies between 6 to 10% or sometimes even more. It is just a beginning; it will still take some time to know the success of this option.
• Private Lending – After the financial meltdown, private lenders have substantially increased the credit points required to qualify for a private student loan option. While it was 620 points of credit score earlier, it has been increased to 650 and even 700 points in case of certain lenders. Hence only those students who qualify for this condition are offered student loans.

Students have a range of options to choose from, hence it is upto you them to clinch the best deal from whatever is being offered.