Showing posts with label student loans for nontraditional students. Show all posts
Showing posts with label student loans for nontraditional students. Show all posts

#5 of 10 - More Tips for Nontraditional Students: are your student loans adding up too fast?


This posting is an Expanded continuation of a posting called: More Tips for Nontraditional Students: 10 situations, plus possible solutions.






#5. You have Student Loans that seem to be adding up too fast. My old answer on the original posting was short and sweet. "Consider getting a part-time job to help you pay for more things yourself. OR a summer job. There are also some work-study programs available at some schools."

Sure, these things might help. But with the minimum wage not even enough right now to pay bills (NOT a living wage!) there is no way working even full-time for awhile will make a very big dent.

But hopefully there is help for student loans around the corner. There was a recent push for lower interest rates. Unfortunately, this did not pass to become law. But I am hopeful this will eventually happen.

In the meantime, try some other ways to save money on your student loans.

A. Only take out the amount of loan that you need.
B. Save money by having room-mates, sharing an apartment, maybe even living on campus.
C. Save money by not eating out as much. Do you REALLY need that new outfit too?
D. "Shop" for your student loans, using the official FAFSA site, and the cheapest loans possible, NOT a credit card, if possible.
E. Try to take all your prerequisites you can, in order, and plan out your semester's work with the help of an advisor. (You MIGHT save 1-2 semester's worth of loans that way...)
F. Look into a Loan Forgiveness program in your major. Is there a way of "giving back" that you could access? Ask about this, and do the research too.
G. Invest time in a possible Internship Program that could get you more connections to a job to pay back your student loan quicker.

What other possible Save Money tips do you have? List them as a comment.
Consider getting a part-time job to help you pay for more things yourself. OR a summer job. There are also some work-study programs available at some schools. - See more at: http://non-traditional-students.blogspot.com/2014/05/more-tips-for-nontraditional-students.html#.U6r3O6igKtp
#5. You have Student Loans that seem to be adding up too fast. Consider getting a part-time job to help you pay for more things yourself. OR a summer job. There are also some work-study programs available at some schools. - See more at: http://non-traditional-students.blogspot.com/2014/05/more-tips-for-nontraditional-students.html#.U6r3O6igKtp

#5. You have Student Loans that seem to be adding up too fast. Consider getting a part-time job to help you pay for more things yourself. OR a summer job. There are also some work-study programs available at some schools. - See more at: http://non-traditional-students.blogspot.com/2014/05/more-tips-for-nontraditional-students.html#.U6r3O6igKtp
Here are some other postings that might help you.

10 Tips for Saving Money at School

 Student Loans - What you should know, plus tips

And here is are two recent news stories you may like:

Consider getting a part-time job to help you pay for more things yourself. OR a summer job. There are also some work-study programs available at some schools. - See more at: http://non-traditional-students.blogspot.com/2014/05/more-tips-for-nontraditional-students.html#.U6r3O6igKtp
 Senate blocks Warren's Student-Loan Refinancing Measure

Student loan forgiveness: What you don't know (but should) via USA Today

Here are the "Expanded answers to the Advice Posting so far:

#1: Were your grades great, or would you like a redo of them, nontraditional students?

#2: Not enough credits to graduate, CLEP, addition, accreditation, transfers, more.

#3.  Are you taking the courses you want to take? Or is it time to change course?

#4.  You don't know if you want to continue, for any reason. Can you continue on?

Here is the original posting again you might like to check out: More Tips for Nontraditional Students: 10 situations, plus possible solutions.


My next posting will talk about #6:
You may want to transfer schools.

Again, good luck this summer, whether you are in school, on vacation, at a job, or whatever you are choosing to do.


#5. You have Student Loans that seem to be adding up too fast. - See more at: http://non-traditional-students.blogspot.com/2014/05/more-tips-for-nontraditional-students.html#.U59gn6jGJox
Betsyanne

Some Nontrad links: The Nontrad site and blog

Join Nontrads on Facebook, Nontrads on Yahoo, and Nontrads on Twitter





Student Loans - what you should know, and some tips

Do you have a student loan? Are you thinking of getting one?

You should know that student loans in the U.S. aren't all the same. For instance, a Stafford Loan can have a fixed interest rate of around 6.8%. 

A Perkins Loan can be 5% interest, and has a 10-year payment period. A PLUS loan (parent loan) is about 7.9%.

This is more than current interest rates for savers, because the rate of school loans is made by Congress, and does not change as much as the cost of living does.

One thing is for sure (and has been all over the news lately) - all student loans must be repaid. Many lenders have you start repaying 6 months after you are out of school, or are not in school at least part-time.

Getting a private (not government) loan is generally more expensive. And putting student debt on a credit card can be extremely costly.

As you may have heard on the news lately, declaring bankruptcy does not get someone out of paying a loan.

But not all students can raise the money nowadays to attend college just from a summer job or savings. So getting a student loan can be necessary.

Be careful, take as many courses as you can per semester (as many as you can safely handle), and have a plan for what you want to take. Making a course plan is very important, as you can save money by not having to wait and take another semester of classes just because of a prerequisite that you forgot to take. Make sure you get an adviser too, to prevent this kind of mistake.

Make sure to ask your advisor about your credits transferring, if you plan to take more courses at another school or graduate school. There have been some scary stories of much student loan money being paid and lost and credits not applying towards a professional program.

And don't just go by what the advisor says, check for yourself at your second school before you spend time and money for classes that will not help you.

Are you looking for a loan? Fill out your information at the FAFSA site, and you will see all the loans available for you. You may even qualify for a scholarship or grant there too, and with the help of the FinAid or Fastweb site.

Find out more:

Loans - at the FinAid site.

The Stafford Loan website

Subsidized vs. unsubsidized loans

The official FAFSA site

Via Wikipedia: The Federal Perkins loan

Probe finds Fraud and Deception at For-Profit Schools (From USA Today)

And here are more of myome nontraditional student links: 

The Nontrad site and blog

Join Nontrads on Facebook

Nontrads on Yahoo

Nontrads on Twitter 

Betsyanne
Former and current Nontraditional Student