Higher education is very important if you want to make good money throughout your life.  The problem of course is that after you have already spent countless hours getting good grades to get into the college of your choice you now have to figure out how to pay for the whole process, which can cost upwards of forty grand a year depending on where you end up going.

Luckily while some schools are extremely expensive there are many other good schools that cost a lot less.  When looking to finance your college experience it is really important to look at multiple options. 

Another thing that is worth doing is to see what it is you want to do for a living.  If you want to be a teacher that is a great thing but the sad reality is that you will never make a ton of money. You can have great influence over the lives of our youth but you do not get paid a ton.  Because of this you might not want to go into a ton of debt as it can further cripple you over the years making it harder and harder and maybe impossible to ever repay. 

So now that you have picked out a school and a program what are the student loan requirements?  Well as with many things the answer can vary as much as what you are going to do for a living.  But the basics are the same as with most other loans.  If you have good credit history, if your parents have good credit history, and you have a job or at least plan on working during school can all affect your loans interest rates and your ability to repay the loan.

Of course since school loans are subsidized by the government you will have a better chance at getting approved then if you went into the bank and asked for a home loan or a small business loan.  One thing worth mentioning is that over the last few years a lot of counseling and student aid departments have gotten into trouble due to them advocating one lender over the others.  What was happening is that they were getting kickback payments from some of the loan companies for their advice.  So what we recommend is that you go and look online at several different student loan vendors. By educating yourself things can go a lot smoother and more importantly you can save a boat load of money.  You want to go to school but you should not be crushed with a mountain of extra debt.

Let's talk about some of the specific types of loans and what it takes to get them.

There are two basic requirements for getting Stafford loans:

1. You have need.
2. You haven't defaulted on a previous educational loan.

Stafford loans are subsidized and guaranteed by the federal government. This means that they will pay back the loan if you default. Because of this, there are no credit requirements when it comes to Stafford loans.

When you apply for a Stafford loan the school is going to look at how much your education should cost. They will then look at your income to determine whether you really need the loan. If you have enough income they won't give it to you. If you need it they will, assuming that you haven't taken out other student loans that you defaulted on.

Private lenders are going to be a lot more strict. Their loans aren't backed by the government so they're taking on a lot more risk. For this reason they will check your credit history. Many private student loans are backed by a cosigner because students generally don't have credit or income.

If you're going to take out a private student loan, I would make sure that your credit score is above 650. If it's below that you won't get approved for many loans and even if you do, your payments will be insane because of high interest levels.

• Using unsecured debt consolidation loans to keep things from getting out of hand.
• Help paying off student loans
• Loan forgiveness - do you even need to pay off your loans?
  
• Low interest personal loans
• Bad credit unsecured personal loans I effed my credit up big time when I was a student - these loans got me gas to get home more than once.