Graduate Loans
September 18, 2009 by admin
Filed under Student Loans
What’s the Difference Between Undergraduate and Graduate Students?
If you are getting your first degree from an accredited institution, you are an undergraduate. Your BA, BS, AA, or AS degree qualifies you as an undergraduate student of higher education. Your freshman through senior years of college would encompass this.
In order to get into graduate school, you have to get a bachelor’s or equivalent degree in four years of college. If you’re a graduate student, you’re getting your doctorate or master’s degree.
Loans for Undergraduates
If you want to become an undergraduate, you are privy to many financial options. You could get a student loan for yourself, or your parents could get one to pay for you. Federal, private and alternative types of loans are all available for you to use. You could ge any permutation of these loans to fund your education.
Often, the undergraduate will get scholarships, grants and loans to help them. You can get the loan yourself, or get your parents to help you out. You could even have our parents cosign for your own loan to pay for it.
Perkins and Stafford Loans, both subsidized and unsubsidized, are just for students, and issues by the federal government for the purposes of financing their higher education. Plus Loans also exist for the people whose children are going to college.
You can even supplement those with private loans from lenders to pay for school. In order to get the price of college taken care of, banks and lenders can distribute these loans to the students and parents of students.
Loans for Graduate Students
If you want to take your education to the next level and go to graduate school, there are loans available. They can help pay for any type of school, from law school to med school.
While at the same time tuition is much higher, the possibilities for loans shrink. Teaching and research assistantships are often ideal options for grad students. You will have to work for them, and they do not pay very much.
Compared to other kinds of students, grad students have it the toughest when it comes to finances. They are still in school and accruing more debt as a student. They’ll have maybe six or seven years of total student debt compared to the undergraduate’s mere four years.
You could get some federal grad school loans if you qualify for them. There are permutations of the Perkins and Stafford Loans that are just for graduate students. They’ll still have the essential make up of the type you got for your undergrad studies, but you can borrow more on them.
A couple of years ago, the subsidized Perkins Loan had a loan limit of $6,000 annually, with a total cap of $40,000. This $40,000 involves the total amount accrued during your entire higher education career, including undergraduate loans.
On the other hand, that same year Stafford Loan limits were $20,000 annually with a cap of $138,500, which also included undergrad totals. You can’t get more than $65,500 from a Stafford Loan that’s subsidized. If your are a grad student, however, you have the opportunity to defer both your undergrad and graduate loan payments.
Most loans don’t make you pay your loans off until after you are done with school. Banks and other kinds of private lenders possess many different kinds of options for loans in any level of education. You can even get graduate student loans with some lenders, so you can complete your education.
The higher your education is and the more prestigious your degree, you’ll get more money in the career you choose and be happier for it. When you get out of school finally, you’ll be prepared.
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