The Insider: College Admissions Advice from the Experts

Education loan relief is on the way for today’s college students and their parents, at least in the short-term.  Congress just passed, and President Obama is expected to sign into law, a compromise bill that keeps student loan interest rates low for today’s crop of college students, while minimizing the cost to the federal government in the long run. This is great news for students on campus this fall, who have been anticipating borrowing at twice the interest rate of last year’s loans.

If you, like many others, are in need of additional financing for college after taking advantage of your child’s federal student loan eligibility, a private student loan may meet your needs.  Before you choose a private student loan, consider the following:

As spring turns to summer, the minds of many new college graduates turn from elation over graduation to anxiety over impending student loan payments. As a College Coach finance educator, and former college aid counselor, I’ve spoken with countless graduates over the years who express the same sentiment: when they signed for those student loans each academic year, they knew they would have to pay the loans back. Somehow, though, those payments didn’t seem quite real until graduation day came and the student loan bills actually were on the way.  That’s when loan amounts that may have seemed reasonable in the abstract can become overwhelming, especially when comparing minimum monthly payments to first full-time paychecks.

Question: If I've had credit issues in my past, will I still be able to get a loan to pay for my child's college education?

How much college debt is too much college debt?  The New York Times recently reported that the average loan indebtedness for the class of 2011 increased 5 percent to $26,500 — the previous year’s figure was $25,350.  We asked our College Coach finance experts to weigh in.  Here’s what a few of them had to say…

Applying for financial aid can be a bewildering process, and it’s all too easy for overwhelmed parents to make seemingly small mistakes that end up costing them thousands of dollars.  In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Rachel Louise Ensign, with assistance from the nation’s leading college finance experts including College Coach’s own Alex Bickford and Robert Weinerman, details some of the most common mistakes in college finance.  Examples include:

College students won a small victory this week when Congress, facing a July 1^st deadline, extended low interest rates on undergraduate Subsidized Direct Loans for a year.

Student loans have been all over the news lately, and most of the news has been pretty frightening.  The Boston Globe recently reported that outstanding student loan debt now totals $870 billion, surpassing both credit card and auto loan debt as a fraction of the economy, with over 14% of borrowers currently delinquent on payments.  And the Washington Post detailed how Americans over age 60 still owe approximately $60 billion in student loans, borrowed either for themselves or to help put children or grandchildren through school, putting the retirement of older borrowers at risk.