A school’s financial aid office assists you and your family by providing information on ways to pay for education. The financial aid office is usually involved with you after the school has made you an offer of admission. You can ...
While both federal student loans and private student loans allow you to borrow money to pay for education expenses, there are some distinct differences. Federal student loans can be better for students in several important ways: In some cases, the ...
You should borrow only what your future earnings will allow you to repay. In general, try not to borrow more for all four (or more years) of college than you expect to earn as a starting annual salary when you ...
Stafford loans are a type of federal student loan. Stafford loans are either subsidized – the government pays the interest while you're in school – or unsubsidized – you pay all the interest, although most students will not start making ...
Perkins loans are a type of federal student loan that is awarded to undergraduate and graduate students based on financial need. This is a campus-based loan program: the school acts as the lender using funds provided by the federal government. ...
There are two types of PLUS loans: the Parent PLUS loan and the Grad PLUS loan. All PLUS loans have a fixed interest rate of 7.9 percent and are not subsidized, which means that interest accrues while enrolled in school. ...
When you consolidate your federal student loans, you are actually taking a new loan called a federal direct consolidation loan. This new loan combines several federal student or parent loans into one larger loan, which replaces your original federal student ...
Private student loans – also known as alternative loans – are offered by private lenders to provide funds to pay for educational expenses. They are not part of the federal student loan program and generally do not feature the flexible ...
Like federal consolidation loans, private consolidation loans combine your existing private student loans into one larger loan. You are replacing your original private student loans with this new loan. You will have a single monthly payment for your new private ...
Tuition payment plans, also called tuition installment plans, are short-term (12 months or less) payment plans that split your college bills into equal monthly payments. Tuition installment plans can be an alternative to student loans if you can afford to ...