Student loans are necessary if you want to secure your future. Unless you are lucky enough to have been given a full scholarship, or your parents can afford to pay your way through college, you will need a student loan. (that would be nice) This is the reason it is so important to keep your mind open and your options open when you are deciding on a career.

You want to make sure you like your chosen field because you will be paying down your student loan in the early part of your career. The best university or school won't help if you don't enjoy the end state, and that is your job. Carefully weigh out the pros and cons of you end state job before you apply for student loan financing. Why spend money and interest on financing on and education you don't use.

Student loan providers are very competitive and use all avenues to advertise their financial services to possible students. They are very adapt at using the internet to advertise and I'm sure you are aware of that. There are so many student loan companies that it is important to have a road map when choosing who to apply for funding with. 

If you are approved for a student loan through Sallie Mae then you won't need any services from this site (since you are reading this page I'm guessing you are not approved through Sallie Mae ). Whatever you do, don't sweat it! There are many reputable student loan companies that will help you with reasonable interest rates and terms.

When applying for your loan using our list of recommended lenders be sure to browse their sites carefully and choose a lender that best suits all your needs and not just some of your needs. If you have had credit problems don't let that throw you for a second. Just keep applying until you find the student loan that is the best deal for you and your future.

We Need To Assess a Typical Student Loan

For this lending scenario we will use an example of a recent borrower from one of our sister sites, that processes student loan applications. The amount of money borrowed for a graduate who had a total of $163,276.83 of total student loan debt. The debtor needed to refinance with another lending institution, and get the APR lower.

Student Loan Calculation at 6% for 20 Years

Principal Student Loan = $163,276.83
Loan Interest Rate = 6.00%
Loan Fees = 0.00%
Loan Term = 20 years

Monthly Loan Payment = $1,169.77
Number of Payments = 240
Total Payments = $280,742.92
Total Interest = $117,466.09

Note: The monthly loan payment was calculated at 239 payments of $1,169.77 plus a final payment of $1,167.89.

You would require salary of over $140K repay this student loan without great pain. Over 10% of your gross yearly income would be use to pay off this loan. We are using a debt to income ratio of 1.2 but;

IF you paid down the loan with a little over 15% of your gross income, your salary would only have to be a little over $93K - but this is stretching your monthly budget - you would have to be disciplined with your spending habits. This would based on a debt to income ration (DTI) of 1.7 percent.