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Financial Aid – Getting Started:

 

The one of the biggest mistakes that college students often make is becoming enamored of the specific career or course of study.  Sure it’s great to be a philosophy major but what will you do with that degree?  Not knocking the field of philosophy, but once you graduate you will need to have a job and pay for those student loans.  When considering your college education, you should consider what the salaries will be for the field you were interested in and how much student loan debt that career will support.  If you’re interested in seeing how your dreams will compare to reality, this calculator is a great place to start:  Click here.

 

Another point to consider is that all educations are not equal in cost.  One of my all time favorite quotes was from a gentleman who taught music full time in high school and gave private music lessons evenings and on weekends and was struggling to pay off in excess of $100,000 of student loans.  He had attended a small, expensive, private school in the Midwest.  He said “if I had known I had to pay for those loans, I would’ve gone to a less expensive school.” Duh!  If you see the word loan or Stafford loan or subsidized and unsubsidized these are definitely referring to money that comes from student loans and will need to be repaid once your education is finished.

 

Many people think that all college educations and loans are created equal – they are not.  Just as you would shop for your auto loan, credit card terms or insurance, you need to shop for your college education.  When you receive your acceptance letter, after you have danced your jig of joy, you need to look at exactly what the school is offering in their package.  How much of the funds are grants, scholarships or other free money and how much of the funds are loans which will have to be paid back with interest.

 

These questions have been around for a long time but the department of education is finally trying to help families analyze these issues.  They’ve created the College Scorecard, a site that’s designed to give families a realistic overview of the cost to attend a specific college.

 

See the Latest Changes to PLUS Loans.