When it comes to paying for a college education there is a lot of information about how to go about raising the necessary funds, but there is not a great deal of information about the sort of fund raising efforts which you should avoid. Here therefore we are going to look at two very common methods of fund raising which should definitely be avoided.
The first surprisingly is student loans. Now most students will have at least one student loan and, more often than not a series of student loans, and without such loans many youngsters would not be able to attend college at all. However, student loans should not be at the top of your list and, when you do take college loans, you need to do so with care.
Your starting point should always of course be to use 'free' money, such as grants and scholarships, and then turn your attention to federal loan schemes, like the Stafford loan scheme. Then, and only then, should you turn your attention to private loan funding and you need to take your time and shop around to get the best deal. Most importantly, any private loan funding must be to meet the necessary costs of attending college and should not be inflated to allow for additional expenses.
If you need to borrow $4,000 for college funding it is very easy to push this up to $4,500 or $5,000 to allow for that new iPod or simply some extra spending money. However, that extra $500 or $1,000 added to several loans over the course of a college education can add considerably to your debt and quickly land you in trouble.
Student loans are fine, and indeed essential in many cases, but never borrow more than you need to.
The second common mistake that many students make is to take out a credit card or, in many cases, a series of credit cards. It is all too easy to get a credit card these days and many credit card companies will literally be pressing them into your hands. However, very few students handle their credit cards correctly and the vast majority run their cards up to the limit in no time at all and then find that they cannot even manage to meet the minimum monthly repayments.
If you do want to have a credit card, then limit yourself to just one card and make sure that you use it only for emergencies. Better still, instead of having a credit card get yourself a debit card, leave a reasonable sum of money in your account and again use it only to meet emergencies.
Despite all the talk about how difficult it is to raise the necessary funding for college it is not always as difficult as you might think. The real problem is overstretching yourself, often by borrowing more money than you really need, and then getting yourself into a mountain of debt which you cannot repay. Now that truly is a problem and is something which you want to avoid at all costs.
TheStudentLoansCenter.com provides information on all aspects of college financing as well as additional details of how not to pay for college
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