Several low-cost, fixed-rate loans are available to undergraduate students, graduate students, and parents of dependent undergraduate students from the U.S. Department of Education’s Direct Loans and Perkins Loans programs. Find out more about federal student loans.
Parents are increasingly struggling to repay federal loans they’ve taken out to help cover their children’s college costs, according to newly released federal data.
The Parent Plus program allows parents to take out essentially uncapped amounts to cover college costs, regardless of the borrower’s income or ability to repay the loan. As the cost of college has risen, the program has become an increasingly critical workaround for families that max out on federal student loans and can’t pay the rest out of pocket.
Q. To assist our son in fulling his dream of becoming an Air Force pilot, we took out a Parent Plus loan to cover his tuition. We borrowed $90,000 over four years. Is there any write-off we can take? It's tough paying $1,200 per month and almost $1,100 goes to interest. It's killing my retirement.
-- Retirement-poor
A. You son is very lucky that you took out loans on his behalf.
Hopefully the day will come when he can help you with the payments.
The American student loan crisis is often seen as a problem of profligacy and predation. Wasteful colleges raise tuition every year, we are told, even as middle-class wages stagnate and unscrupulous for-profit colleges bilk the unwary. The result is mounting unmanageable debt.
There is much truth in this diagnosis. But it does not explain the plight of Liz Kelley, a Missouri high school teacher and mother of four who made a series of unremarkable decisions about college and borrowing. She now owes the federal government $410,000, and counting.
HUG is NOT refinancing, consolidation, settlement or bankruptcy. It will not damage or freeze your credit. Our typical client will be debt-free in half the time or less, including mortgage, credit cards, student loans and other types of debt obligations, compared to their current schedule. Most clients will pay less than 3% interest over all.
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"Bankruptcy laws allow companies to smoothly reorganize, but not college graduates burdened by student loans."
– Robert Reich
"There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt."
– P. T. Barnum
“What I would like to do... once I take care of all my kids' student loans, is buy a red 1965 Mustang and fully restore it.”
– Mike Quigley
"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going."
– Irwin "Professor" Corey
“This would be a much better world if more married couples were as deeply in love as they are in debt.”
– Earl Wilson
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