The Student Loan Blog

While researching student debt online today, I came across a blog called the Student Loan Blog. I found this blog particularly useful, because of all the different topics it covers. Even though it is titled as the Student Loan Blog, it covers other topics like career advice, alternative loans and scholarships other than just federal, as well as student loan debt.

While reading some of the blog posts, I noticed how this blog made aware to the audience that student loans were created and designed to help students in low-income families attend college. It pointed out that student loans have become more of a means generating money, and has gotten away from its original goal, which was and still should be to help students attend college who would otherwise not be able to.

With college costs continually go up, the group of students who require student loans to attend college is growing. In this struggling economy, more people are finding that they are need to attend college to help them find a better job, thus they will almost definitely need to take out student loans to accomplish this goal. Over the course of the last decade, West Virginia University has seen a steady increase in the number of Bachelor degrees awarded, despite the rise in college costs and the fear of student debt.

The blog has many tools to help anyone find the right kind of loan for them. In addition to helping students find loans, the blog also offers advice and tips on how to monitor your loan and minimize how much money you will pay. Overall, the Student Loan Blog is very useful and can answer any questions you might have when it comes to student loans; however it is a little hard to locate the specific information you might be looking for.

Introduction: The College Student Situation

As a college student money is always a concern for me. Being able to provide for myself and pay for the everyday costs of living (a fairly long list) is a constant worry for me as I’m sure it is for many other college students. I have to watch my spending to make sure I don’t run out of money and keep my schedule from being overloaded. I work part-time, so I am forced to balance that with school, finding time for both so I can take care of myself at the present as well as prepare for my future. That future entails any unexpected accidents that I might have to dish out money for (such as a car accident) and my life after college.

Life after college, the next step in life and growing up some might say, has a nice long list concerns waiting for me once I get there. The two most primary of them being finding a job and paying off my college loans. At this moment, the amount of loans for me is just under $10,000 and if I graduate on time, it will be at least $15,000 (give or take a $1000). I’m guessing that a good portion of students at WVU will be in the same boat as me, excluding those with rich parents and full-ride scholarships.

Facing college debt is something many college students have to do. When I was preparing for college, undergraduate debt was almost like a part of life. It was just something I would have to eventually confront if I wanted to go to college. Sometimes I even find myself wondering if going to college is worth the cost, seeing as the cost for tuition for college level education is continually rising across the globe.

With the bad economy, more people are attending college so that they may find better jobs making more money. A good thing, yes? Yes, it is, however that means that a larger number of people are soon going to have college debt, and not everyone is going to be able to find a job, even after going to college. During my Spanish class today, this actually came up in conversation pertaining to law school graduates. Law school graduates are having a hard time finding jobs and law school is very pricy. My Spanish instructor mentioned that a friend of hers attending Law school in Kentucky had to take out a loan for nearly $90,000 (this was for only one year). This included her schooling as well as the cost to support herself. Even though she will get a higher paying job in her field than I will in mine, she will most likely be paying off her loans for a lot longer than I will be.

My primary concern is the negative effects of undergraduate debt that will befall students (myself included) as they graduate.  The best way to prepare for college debt is to start planning and preparing now, or before college, and I hope that in my discussion on this blog I will be able to reveal ways to do just that. The amount of money a college student may owe after college can be staggering and overwhelming, but dealing with it sooner rather than later is probably the best strategy for any college student in this time, otherwise the problem could escape you and it’ll end up haunting you for what could be the rest of your life.