Affordable College Degree: Finding Money For College Now And Later

Several College funding concerns prompted the launch of this College Payment Guide website:

• An affordable college degree, exploring how to get money for college;
• Student loan debt consolidation and other issues related to refinancing college loans later
• Whether even the best online colleges are more affordable plus other questions about online college degrees
• and finally, delaying retirement investments when college loans financed college education.

Affordable College Degree The Focus Of College Payment Guide

Obtaining an affordable college degree is also becoming the focus of the U.S. Department of Education, and they are taking efforts to make college more affordable.

Is it possible to be a college student without student loans? Recent government programs regarding college costs and federal student aid are focusing on making affordable college degrees a real possibility.

New laws asking colleges and universities to look at these financial concerns:

• financing college with student loans,
• consolidation of student loans,
• other options to financing online college courses,
• and challenges to an affordable college degree.

Student Loans And College Affordability Prompts College Payment Guide

In fact, finding answers to the questions about refinancing college loans led to this website providing student loan debt help.

For those with student loans, consolidation is an option to consider when trying to get your finances in order after college.

Yes, even the best student loans need to be re-payed and often it is the financially strapped college graduate who is attempting to refinance college loans.

Personal Finance Survival Skills and Student Loans

Greetings from San Diego, California. My name is Chaplain Paul Slater and I meet people all the time with questions about financing a college education, and then, refinancing college loans after they have graduated.

In teaching personal finance survival skills, anything I know about best college loans and their repayment has come from personal experience. My expertise in college loans consolidation comes about from obtaining personal student loans many decades ago and then seeing my own college bound children repeat the college loan process as our family's preferred path to higher education finance.

I am concerned most about the impact of financing college education through federal student loans on the personal finances of graduates, especially their ability to begin building wealth.

College graduates struggling financially to pay their student loans have been in my life for decades. Personally I feel it is time for a change in how paying for college is approached. In fact, many wonder if the student loan industry will be the next financial bubble to burst here in the USA.

Obtaining An Affordable College Degree Without Borrowing

Is it even possible to attend college without debt? Not if college bound students and their parents just assume having a large college debt is the only path to an affordable college degree.

Out of control consumer debt is finally catching up with us as a nation. The fact that the Higher Education Industry has entrenched college loans and student aid into the mindset of students, to the point that attending college cheaper and faster is not even considered.

Until now, that is. Many are questioning the student loan approach. There has to be a better way to pay for college! Some parents of college students are still paying their own student loans, perhaps consolidated many times over.

Distance Learning For Online College Degrees

Online colleges are now more prevalent and certainly have gained respect as a viable way to complete a college degree.

Unfortunately some private online college programs have been in the news for coercing students to apply for federal student loans with no hope of ever being able to repay their college loans.

I personally think the same accusation could be leveled at many public and private institutions of higher education. From my perspective, graduating with college indebtedness between $50,000 and $100,000 is often a debt that cannot be overcome.

Repayment of college loans is often difficult if not impossible because either the field of study leads to a low paying career or the college graduate discovers few jobs available in their chosen career.

Even if borrowing for college should prepare the student for employment in a high paying career field, jobs are not available even when the repayment clock for college loans begins to tick.

College Loan Payments And Building Wealth

Here is a simple investment strategy to determine if financing a college degree is wise: multiply your anticipated salary by 30 years and see if the amount arrived at would be considered wealth to you.

Those I consider financially wise have said that it is not what you earn but what you keep after you earned it that leads to wealth and prosperity.

What really concerns me when teaching financial peace classes is meeting so many college graduates who have accumulated college debt.

Indebtedness from college means they cannot begin the wealth building process in a timely way. Without college debt, taking advantage of saving and investing strategies early would mean they could take advantage of the miracle of compound interest over a greater number of years.

While college student loan consolidation may relieve the pressure of high payments for college loans, the real cost of refinancing college loans is the loss of opportunity to earn income on investments.

What if the payments on refinanced student loans, instead of reducing the graduate's debt, were building wealth? Instead of repaying college student loans, those graduating college could begin investing. Now that would indeed be an affordable college degree!

Just think of how much compound interest could be earned through the funds that are paying college loan indebtedness, if they were instead being invested for retirement.

Another Look At Student Loan Consolidation And Affordable College Degree

We usually attend college to get smarter. Yet how smart are we to think that getting deeper in debt through student loans will lead to financial success?

Even if we can refinance college loans with the best college loan consolidation interest rates, will doing so lead us to achieving wealth over a lifetime.