Obtaining college funding is important. This is a common fact. However, before you elect to take out student loans to pay for your schooling, there’s a little information that you should know. There are many recent college graduates who are struggling to find a job in today’s economy. Because almost two thirds of graduating college students are more than $20,000 in debt and struggling with their inability to find a job, the worry can become all consuming. Practicality versus passion is becoming more of a debate.
Many students are opting to reinvent themselves and pursue a career field that they are passionate about since they are unable to get a job in their first field of study. This may actually be a good thing when it comes to your college funding debt. The government is creating more liberal loan forgiveness programs for students who are working in traditionally low paying job fields. If you qualify for the program, the federal government will reduce your student loan payments. For those who choose a career in the military, who decide to practice medicine or who choose to teach in a low income community, all of their school debt may be forgiven.
Under the guidelines of the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007, two federal loan forgiveness programs were created to assist those who decide to pursue a field of study that allows them to serve the public. These two programs are the Income Based Repayment and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The PSLF is the program that will forgive your debt if you choose to enter a field that will allow you to serve a low income community. You must ensure that you qualify for the program before you can eliminate the cost of your college funding.
The IBR allows the borrowers of their college funding to keep their student loan monthly payments at an affordable level. Their monthly payments are calculated by determining the amount of their income and the size of their family. You must have enough school debt to qualify for the program, and the monthly payments are capped at 15% of your monthly income. Before you choose student loans as a means of college funding, you should be aware of how it can affect your life down the road. You should first attempt to receive as many scholarships and grants as you can before resorting to college loans. If loans are unavoidable, you can still get good rates for future payments.
