Financial Aid: Student Loans

I wrote an article about student loans for my school's paper, The Banner, but there's much more to be said.

It's interesting to see that while many students don't like the idea of taking out loans, they are finding themselves more often than not of actually needing them to a large extent.

Loans can be dangerous if they're not taken seriously.

Several students, especially graduate students are taking the loans out for their personal use. They are able to receive a higher eligibility, but it seems that they are taking advantage. They need to remember that the loans will need to be paid back. Yes at a later time, but nevertheless eventually.

While loans and other financial aid information is hard to understand and fully grasp, it's possible. There are websites created especially for students.

Take for instance the nslds.ed.gov website. This is a website for students go to and see all the loans they have taken out in their entire college career. It'll detail the amount, the year, the type, the lender and the school.

Another website for students to learn about they loans they have taken out, or are currently thinking about, is studentloans.gov.

Because of Obama's healthcare reform bill, all schools in the US are required to process loans through the Dept. of Education.

This means all students will have Direct Loans as their lender.

You can read about repayment, which happens six months after graduation (or six months after you drop below half-time status). You can also read about loan consolidation, which is now recommended since most students will have more than one lender.

The Huffington Post's college section released an article about student loans and the states with the highest average amount of student debt. DC tops the list with students averaging $ 30,033 in loan monies.

Huff Post also has an article that the national student debt rose 6 percent from last year’s figure and now amounts to $ 24,000.