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Student Loans: an
Introduction
In order to achieve career goals and a
standard of living we desire, most of us need student loans to help pay
our way through college. In an ideal world, the loans would get you
through college, and college neatly guide you that career which would
easily pay them back. Unfortunately, with the economic recession, more and
more graduates are finding it difficult to acquire jobs with high paying
wages. Graduates are searching for entry-level jobs that would have been
possible to attain without the four year bachelor degree and $120,000
tuition, particularly those who's major did not train them for a specified
trade (such as English, History, the visual and performance Arts, and
Philosophy). This is a personal issue for me, as I am caught in this catch
22, having a BA in English Literature, a minor in Dance, and virtually no
specific field for which I am trained. Editors are being laid off and a
freelance writer does not accrue enough pay to make a living (or provide
insurance). What with the Avenue Q song, I should have known.
If you are indebted by student loans, there is
hope. I'm going to share my experience so that you can avoid mistakes I've
made and learn the best way to take a loan out and eventually, pay it off,
even if that involves student loan consolidation. But to start with, here
are facts about your loans and tips about the best way to pay them off:
Types of Loans
There are two different
types of student loans, public and private. Public loans are given by the
US government. There are Federal public loans and State public loans.
Public student loans tend to have a lower interest rate than private
student loans are given based on financial eligibility as determined by a
FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). In the most basic words
possible: the less money your family makes during your college career, the
higher the loans you are likely to be granted.
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