It’s easy to sign up for a student loan to pay for college. But then the difficulty comes when you’ve graduated college & the student loan companies start calling, emailing & mailing you asking for repayment. Most loan companies are supposed to give you 6 months after graduation before you have to pay but they still commit these “spam” tactics whenever they can.
So you must be aware of what your options are as far paying back your loans. The first & most important thing you should do is create a budget. If you’re earning $4,000 a month & have $2,500 in bills you will have a remaining $1,500 each month to put towards other items. So if you have $500 a month due in student loans it is a great idea to save $750 each month & pay $750 towards your loans each month. This makes it where you are paying 3 monthly payments every 2 months, which will obviously allow you to pay off your loans quicker.
Then you have to consider some options that offer student loan forgiveness. Please bear in mind these loan forgiveness options are difficult to achieve & in some cases the forgiveness isn’t much. For example, if you teach for five years in a low income area you may be able to have $6,000 in student loans disappear. Clearly it is difficult for individuals to be willing to stick with something like this, especially if better options present themselves. There are a number of programs like Teach for America where they will place you in a loan income area to teach. Once you complete a certain number of years you will become eligible for student loan forgiveness. Most people attempt to do this out of college & end up leaving the low income schools after a year resulting in them receiving low pay & not reaching the requirements for forgiveness.
One thing people fail to take advantage of is military enlistment. I’m sure you’ve heard of individuals who graduate high school, enlist & then have their college paid for by the military once they’ve been with them for a certain number of years. You can do the same exact thing after graduating college, whether it is with your associate’s degree or bachelor’s degree. Completing a certain number of years as an enlisted member of a military branch will result in a good portion of your student loans being forgiven, in addition to them being willing to pay for you to advance your career – pursuing a master’s degree, doctorate, etc.