Paying for College

The Baltimore Sun recently released a helpful article for those students who are repaying back Federal Student Loan debt. The Article is titled “How to make mountainous student debt less huge” and feature three major tips that those paying back federal student loans could use. These however do not hold true with private student loans.

1) Utilize Income Based Repayment Options
The new program that is slated to begin in 2009 allows for federal student loan payments to be 15% of discretionary income This is for income exceeding 150 percent of the poverty level (see local state for poverty information).

2) Public Service Forgiveness
This is a new student loan program that helps those students who enter fields that are valuable to society but underpay wage-wise. With this program you will have your student loan debt forgiven after 10 years of on-time payments.

3) State Help
The Sun brings up a good tip here, look to the state for programs that can help reduce your loans. Maryland and many other states have programs that help those in both service related fields and award those who working in non-profits, check your local state for programs.

The main and most valuable point of the article is that no matter how far in debt you are, don’t fall too far and exhaust all help that you may be eligible for.

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