How to locate College Aid – Handy tips for stressful students!

Author: Sally Croft

Locating the best college aid option can be really stressful if you do not have enough information about the sources of college financial aid programs. In order to help you save the stress and strain in finding the right financial aid option, read below the discussion on college financial aid.

Locating College Aid

While college aid is available from various sources, in most cases the real difficult lies in qualifying for the loan. Financial aid for college studies is inevitable given the rising cost of education and increased financial dependence on outside sources. While scholarships and grants help you fund the education at zero cost, more often they not sufficient to cover the entire cost of education.
The real impact of having taken a student loan is felt only at the time of repayment. Even a bachelor’s degree taken few tens of thousands of dollars to complete, leave alone the rest. The only place where the cost of tuition is never a problem is when you choose to go to a community college, but for that you should be aware of the many different sources from where you could fund your education.
Are you good at some sport or special talent? Check out your college or community about the various scholarship programs and if you qualify for any of them, then make it a point to apply. Scholarship amounts are completely free, which means no liability. What stops you from procuring the free money?
If you can afford to find a job in the university or college you study, there can be nothing like that. In addition to all scholarship and grant amounts, the amounts received from work while studying will help you meet up those extra unplanned expenses. Make sure you have sufficient time for both work and study.
Student loan is the best source for college education. As specified earlier, free money grants are not always sufficient to meet the cost of education. So, what should you do in such cases, opt for loans. Both federal and private loans are offered to students who wish to pursue their college education.
While where a choice exists between federal and private loans, it is a sensible option to go for federal loans both in terms of cost of loans and other benefits arising out of it, like deferment and loan forgiveness.
Federal student loan funding comes from huge sources of funds earmarked for this purpose. Hence those of you, who are into serious financial over haul please submit your FAFSA application form and obtain need based grants like PELL grants and Subsidized Stafford Loans.
What about taking classes online? There are several online colleges in existence, that offer excellent online coaching for various degrees namely associate, bachelors and masters. Online education costs much lesser than regular education and is an excellent choice of online learning.

While several strategies can be offered online, it is upto the students to decide which of the offers best suit your requirements at cost.

Tags: College Financial Aid Programs, FAFSA, federal loan, Online Learning, private loan, repayment, Scholarship, student loan
Posted in Private Student Loan Consolidation, Repayment Student Loan, Scholarship, Student Loan | No Comments »

Aug

Getting Direct Student Loan

Author: Sally Croft

Direct Student Loan program is the initiative of US Department of Education. Mainly referred to as the Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP), the program offers financial aid and assistance to students willing to pursue their educational goals. The loans are offered to courses taken up after high school education.

What are Direct Student Loan?

The so called ‘Direct Loans’ are directly issued by the Department of Education to students satisfying the needs of grant provided they are in line with the terms under which the educational institution of their choice is listed with them . The terms of loan are extremely beneficial to students looking forward for low cost loans.

These direct loans are often need based loans offered to students. You must be aware of both subsidized and unsubsidized loans offered to students by government agencies. While subsidized loans are those where the interest cost of the loan is borne by the government, unsubsidized loans are otherwise called guaranteed loans also offered by private lenders under the pretext that these loans are guaranteed by government agencies on behalf of the students.

The credit score or credit rating of the student is of no relevance to direct loan programs as the issue of loans are no way related to credibility of the student, instead subject to the information disclosed in the FAFSA application form, the financial condition of the student is clearly recognized and accordingly the loan is granted.

Choice of Direct Student Loan Program

Federal loans are offered to students to meet their educational expenses. They are either directly issued to students from the Department of Education and through all other government and private agencies. It is the US Department of Education that provides the funding for all federal loan programs.

The amount of funding offered are same in terms of the amount offered both for direct Stafford and PLUS loans and those Stafford and PLUS student loan programs offered through FFELP (Federal Family Education Loan Program)

Both origination and consolidation are offered under the Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP). Educational institutions are open to participate in either FDLP or FFELP. Again, it is important to note here that while students are directly offered the loan, they are not allowed to choose FDLP where the school of their education chooses FFELP. In other words, they are allowed to choose a program in line with their school’s choice. The same condition does not hold good for consolidation loan option under FDLP or FFELP.

Under the new Obama Government, origination loans are being brought under the complete control of direct loan programs, highly benefitting the government’s treasury.
Have you been granted any student loan under the direct loan program, if yes please discuss the procedure and your experience.

Tags: Direct Student Loan, federal loan, student loan
Posted in Direct PLUS Loan, Federal School Loan, Student Loan | 2 Comments »

Jan

Private Student Loan – Who is getting the profit?

Author: Sally Croft

Well, in today’s time of growing cost of education where the scholarships and grants are just not sufficient to meet the funding requirement. Federal loans issued by the government and federal agencies do play a major role in filling the gap and funding the ever increasing cost of education. Unfortunately no one source is sufficient. Taking into account the desperate need for finance and the multifarious conditions to be satisfied to avail the government guaranteed loans, the alternative loans or the private loans have received attention due minimal restrictions and more of availability.

Misconceptions about Private Student Loan:

If you have a question whether the borrower is at a profit availing a Private Student Loan, the answer is obviously no. The most expensive of all loans is the private student’s loan. This credit based loan carries the maximum interest rate with minimal flexibility. Available at anytime during the year, with typically no restriction on the number of loans granted and the amount of loan granted, these Private Loans are only resort available to those borrowers who do not qualify for a Federal Student Loan.

These loans are granted based on the credit score of the borrower. Those with the excellent credit points are offered loans at the best of rates and are offered further discounts for repayment of installments on time. Those with bad or negative credit score will obviously suffer higher rates for the risk factor involved in offering those loans.

The profit collectors:

All companies and institutions offering Private Loans make maximum profit. These institutions though aim at helping students in funding their education; they are not non – profit organizations. They are into business to make money. They cash on the genuine need of the students by offering loans at maximum interest rate and charging other fess such as origination and processing fees.

While these Private Lenders also offer government guaranteed loans, private loans as the name suggest are offered only by private lending institutions. While the terms of the loan are negotiable, any deal will certain end in benefiting the lender and not the borrower. These are not need based loans like the Federal Subsidized Loans.

Why should I go for Private Student Loan?

The only reason why you will go for a Private Loan is the need to finance your degree after every scholarship and federal loan option has been exhausted and you have no other option left. Hence, a private loan is an unavoidable expensive loan where the lenders are at a profit and the borrowers are ever at a loss.

Tags: borrower, credit score, federal loan, finance, Private Student Loan, Scholarship
Posted in Career Advice, Private Student Loan, Student Loan | 5 Comments »