Monday 9 March 2009

10 Essential Tips For Student Borrowing

If you are presently looking for student loans then here are 10 things which you should think about carefully before you commit yourself to a loan:

1. Begin your search by looking at the award letter for your course and calculate just which need based loans you can apply for and how much money these loans would give you.

2. Look at your total financial picture including things like your education costs, the availability of any scholarship or grant money and money which will be provided by your family and then calculate how much money you need to borrow.

3. Never borrow more than you need. Regardless of how much money a lender offer you, do not borrow more than you need to meet your short and medium term needs.

4. Look at student employment as an alternative to borrowing. Although working at a job while in college might seem like an extra burden it can be a lot better than struggling with high loan repayments after college.

5. Get you application for a student loan in as soon as you can. It is important to make sure that you obtain the loans you need and that your money gets to you before your bills start to arrive, so do not wait once you know how much money you need to borrow and put in your application without delay.

6. Be careful to follow the instruction on any loan application to the letter as mistakes may well result in your application being rejected or to a delay in you receiving your money.

7. If you have applied for Stafford or Direct student loans then you should not be surprised if the amount that you receive is less than the amount you applied for because a fee of up to 4% will be deducted from your loan. This deduction will be made prior to the check being sent to your college.

8. Once you have taken your first student loan you should begin to keep a track of your borrowing so that you know just what your monthly repayments will be in the future. It is all too easy to be lulled into a false sense of security while you are at college and not making repayments, but you might well be in for a shock once you have left college and have to start making monthly repayments. You will find a number of student loan calculators available which will handle the complicated mathematics for you.

9. Should you find, after you have taken on as much federal loan debt as you can, that you require further loans from a private lender then you should seek professional advice before beginning your search for additional funding.

10. If you do take on additional private loan funding then you will need to carefully rework your budget to include servicing any additional loans while you are attending college.

About The Author:
TheStudentLoansCenter.com provides information on financial aid for college and also looks at such things as student loans for bad credit

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