Should You Take Out Private Student Loans for College?

Should You Take Out Private Student Loans for College?The federal government only offers a limited amount of financial aid for college students each year. Whether your family is over the income limit or you’ve maxed out your federal loans and need more funding to pay for your educational expenses, then you might need to turn to private student loans for help.

Maintaining your financial health is important, which is why many people are wary of the potential pitfalls of private student loans. However, they could be useful compared to your alternative options of finding outside funding for your education or having to transfer to another university to lower your tuition costs.

Should You Borrow Private Student Loans?

Here are a few considerations to make if you might take out private student loans:

Available Funding

Private student loans offer much larger loan packages than what you might qualify for from governmental sources of financial aid. You can typically borrow up to $21,000 in loans from the federal government (subsidized or unsubsidized, depending on your qualifications and type of degree you’re pursuing). You can put this money towards tuition, books, and other living expenses during college.

While you can typically borrow much more from private student loan companies, be sure to take out only what you need to avoid having to repay six-figure student loan balances like you hear about in student loan horror stories.

Credit Checks

Some federal financial aid is based on need, which means you might not experience a credit check prior to loan distribution. However, private student loans are credit-based, so many companies will require a credit check to ensure you’ll be able to manage the loans and eventually pay them off. Research shows that people with lower than a 650 credit score may struggle to qualify for private loans, which means you’ll need a co-signer to be eligible for the loan you’re applying for.

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Financial Rescue: How to Land a Personal Loan with Bad Credit

Is It Better To Save For Closing Costs Or Pay Down Loan?Getting a loan can sometimes be a lifesaver. Nearly everyone at some time needs to make a purchase which will make a difference to life. There was a time when it involved a visit to the bank to persuade a reluctant manager, but now it is often a simple matter of completing an online form and the loan can be agreed within seconds. Unless that is, you have a poor credit score report, in which case the process can be frustrating and disappointing.

How to Get a Personal Loan with Bad Credit

So what are your options if this applies to you?

Is Your Score as Bad as You Think?

Before you start to look for a loan, check your credit report score. You will need to do this with each of the credit report agencies. It is not unusual for people to find mistakes, like a debt which you settled still listed as outstanding. On the whole, it is relatively easy to get such mistakes put right by contacting the lender and getting them to correct the administrative error.

Improve Your Score

It is a fairly long-term process, but it is always worth setting things going to improve your score, by paying off as much debt as you can when you can. The lower the percentage of debt to your income or borrowing limit, the better things will be. Be ruthless with cutting your expenses.

At the same time, of course, you must avoid making your score any worse. For instance, if you are having difficulty meeting your car loan payments on time, you could research car loan refinance options to spread the payments—it will cost more in the long-term, but it may avoid missed payments.

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Top 7 Credit Card Warning Signs Of Debt Trouble

Credit Card Warning Signs Of Debt TroubleDo you have a problem with your credit card debt? Do you know the credit card warning signs that your debt may be out of control or hard for you to handle? Fill out a quick form and start on the road to financial freedom.

Warning Signs Of Too Much Credit Card Debt

I think that if you are truly honest with yourself that you probably know these seven credit card warning signs that you may be in debt trouble. Here are the credit card warning signs to look for…

Paying Off One Credit Card With Another

One of the easiest signs that you most likely have too much credit card debt is that you are using one credit card to pay off the balance of another. Have you ever used those balance transfer checks to payoff another credit card?

This may be a good strategy if you have an overarching plan to specifically attack your debt. But, it can also be a warning sign that you may have too much debt and cannot handle the payments.

It is a slippery slope that you are tackling by moving debt around from one account to another. And, as the last statement described, it is also simply moving debt around. It is not tackling the underlying problem of your spending habits that are creating the debt.

Using Advance Payments

Another warning sign that you may have too much debt and could possibly have trouble handling your credit card debt is if you are using the advance payment checks that are often offered with your credit cards. They typically have even larger interest rates than your standard purchases that you make with your credit cards every day. The best thing that you can do with these advance payment checks from your credit card company is to shred them as soon as you receive them in the mail.

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The Most Student Loan Debt in College by Football Conference

Two of the most popular topics this Fall are college football and student loan debt. It’s always interesting to see the figures for the average college student loan debt. And, now you can see the average college student loan debt by college football conference. How does your favorite team stack up?
 
Though they might not seem like they go together, the folks over at The Student Loan Report were able to do this in their Most Student Loan Debt in College by Football Conference study.
 
They ranked each team in the Power Five conferences in terms of student loan debt per borrower. They also ranked each conference against each other.

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