If you’re among the 2/3 of families that will borrow to pay for college, you may be looking at private student loans as one of your options. Unlike federal direct student loans, private student loans typically require a co-signer. It’s vital that parents and others asked to co-sign understand what they are actually doing when co-signing a student loan.
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Many financial aid awards include work study. Typically work study is awarded in a dollar amount per academic term, for example $1,000 per quarter. Which leaves a lot of people wondering what it means and how you get it.
Students who are waitlisted at their top-choice school should understand how waitlists work, because they can a little bit like Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!” Here is a great article explaining how waitlists work. The key takeaway from a money perspective:Â Waitlists tend to be “need-aware” so waitlisted students who require financial aid to…
529 withdrawals are always pro-rata contributions and earnings. That means that if you contributed $30,000 to your account over the years and it’s now worth $40,000, then your withdrawal will be 75% contributions and 25% earnings. That’s moot in the case of a qualified withdrawal, but it matters for a non-qualified one: tax and penalties will apply to the earnings…
Income-based repayment, or IBR, can be a great option for recent college graduates who need some breathing room while getting started in a career. However, there are some real risks to it, especially for those who owe significant loan balances or are in career paths where the salary trajectory is fairly level. In these instances, the payments may never make…