Planning on entering public service after college so you can have your student loans forgiven? It’s more complicated than you think.
Think about how often you change your mind. There’s no way to be completely certain that your plans won’t change sometime in the next four years–or in the ten years you have to commit to a public service position in order to be eligible for student loan forgiveness.
This video from Reuters TV offers a year-by-year plan for high school students and their parents to help them prepare for college. It includes some great tips on saving for college and how to get the most financial aid possible.
Are you planning on taking out student loans to pay for college? It’s important to have a plan in place before taking on too much student debt. Remember, unlike other forms of debt, student loans can’t be discharged if you declare bankruptcy.
When choosing a college, it’s important to keep future student debt in mind. Forbes advises that students should keep college debt below their expected first year’s salary. While this may seem impossible given the rising cost of college, it demonstrates the need to be diligent in your college search to find a school that offers significant financial aid while providing a quality education.
Want to apply to college, but worried about all those application fees adding up? The College Board wants to help you.
If you got a high score on your SAT or PSAT, you may soon be receiving a package that will make it free to apply to 6 colleges of your choice, the New York Times reports. The College Board is sending fee waivers to about 28,000 seniors who scored in the top 15 percent of test takers and whose family is in the bottom quarter of income distribution.
This summer, college students and their parents narrowly avoided a student loan interest rate hike that would have raised interest rates on new subsidized Stafford loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. The deal set Federal Stafford Loans for undergraduates at 3.85%, Graduate PLUS loans at 5.4%, and Parent PLUS loans at 6.4%.
While college-bound students and their families breathed a collective sigh of relief, the deal came with a catch: student loan interest rates would be tied to the health of the economy. If the economy improves as economists predict, rates would increase in coming years. In fact, rates would likely climb higher than they were this past spring.
For families who have saved for college with a 529 plan, the new deal presents an interesting conundrum. Should you use the funds in your account now to pay for your student’s education or save them for the future, when it might be more expensive to borrow?
A new investigation from ProPublica has found that public colleges and universities are increasingly giving less financial aid to poor students in favor of wealthier ones. Even through the economic recession, public schools continued to favor high-income students in favor of students who need the money the most. The chart below shows that from 1996 through 2012, […]
When deciding whether a college’s price tag is worth the investment, it’s important to consider your major and career aspirations. While no major can guarantee financial success, a recent study from Georgetown University found that your college major can significantly impact your future earning potential.
We don’t recommend choosing your college major based on average salary alone, but it’s certainly something you should consider when deciding whether to take out student loans to pay for college and how much debt you can handle.
Whether your child is still in high school or just starting college, the back-to-school season is a reminder that higher education comes at a high price. While it’s advantageous to plan ahead and start saving early, for many families it’s just not possible.
So what should you do if you haven’t invested in a 529 plan or saved, and your child is close to starting (or even enrolled in) college? Are you completely out of luck?
College is a good time to start building up your credit. Some landlords take credit scores into account when deciding whether or not to let you rent an apartment, so it’s beneficial to have a good credit history. And if you’re looking to buy a car sometime in the future, having a high credit score can help you secure a low interest rate on a car loan.
Using credit cards, and paying them off in full each month, is a good way to establish your credit. But some college students make financial mistakes that end up hurting their credit scores.
On Wednesday, July 31, 2013, the U.S. House gave final passage to a compromised bill for student loan interest rates. The president signed it into law on August 9, 2013.
For new student loans made since July 1, 2013, the new rates for this year will be 3.86% fixed for undergraduate Direct subsidized and unsubsidized loans, 5.41% fixed for Graduate Direct unsubsidized loans and 6.41% fixed for Direct PLUS loans. This is significantly less than borrowers would be paying if a deal hadn’t been brokered.