Student Loans

Student loans are some financial aid that funded by the government or private to help student pursue their education and covering their costs such as educational expenses and living costs. Borrowers are including student, parent, and cosigner. And lenders of student loans are the government through the U.S. Department of Education and NSLDS (The National Student Loan Data System) as the central database for student financial aid, and non-government lenders that consists of private loan provider, private loan company, credit union, or bank, such as Keybank, Sallie Mae, Citibank, Bank of America, and U.S. Bank.

Student loans have many different types of programs. But, those are generally consists of federal student loans, private student loans, and consolidation student loans. Federal loans have many types include Federal Family Education Loans/FFEL (Subsidized Stafford Loans and Unsubsidized Stafford Loans, federal parent loans PLUS Loans or Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students include Graduate PLUS loan, and federal consolidation loans), Perkins loans, K-12 education loans, Consolidation loans program (FFELP (The Federal Stafford Loan Consolidation, Stafford Loan Consolidation, and PLUS Loan Consolidation, and SLS), Guaranteed Student Loans, FISL, Perkins, HEAL (Health Education Assistance Loans), Health Professional Student Loans, NSL, and Direct loans), and Federal Direct Student Loan Program/FDSLP (Direct Subsidized Stafford Loans, Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loans, Direct PLUS Loans, and Direct Consolidation Loans). Private   student loans or alternative student loans are consists of Certified Private Loan, Uncertified Private Loan, and Private Graduate Loan Consolidation.

For many reasons, student loans like federal student loans generally have many benefits for borrower, such as lower fixed interest rates between 5.0% to 8.5%, eligible for consolidation, 10-year standard repayment term, and 6-No (no-collateral, no-difficulty application process, no-fees for application, no-penalties in prepayment, no-repayment during in school, and no-cosigner requirement). If borrower need more money to covering costs, they could apply private student loans that have benefits such as free application and no FAFSA required, direct payment via auto-debit, competitive interest rates and fees, and interest rates discount. But, private loans also have other possibilities that could be different for any private lenders, for examples, private may capitalize the interest, quarterly percentage rate, origination fees, higher interest rates, or different calculation.

Borrower could access the information about student loans via online services or by phone the customer service from lenders. Or, consult it first with the financial aid adviser. Furthermore, doing some investigation to considering and learn about the guarantee, interest rates, fees, amount of loan, APR (Annual Percentage Rate), repayment plans, rewards and discount, co-signer requirement, credit score, promissory note, disbursement, cancellation, forbearance, deferment, customer service quality, and also find out about the latest news from the loan policy. But, the primary advice is try to select federal student loan than private student loan, and fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid).