Most students will first, of course, look for the so called "free money" that is provided in the form of scholarships, grants or bursaries or even through businesses that will partially pay for a student to get a degree in return for a commitment of future employment for a contract term.
Government student loans may either be subsidized or unsubsidized. They can be loans such as the Stafford or Perkins, or even loans for parents such as the PLUS loans.
Subsidized loans will not have any interest charged from the time the student gets the loan until the grace period after graduation is completed. Therefore if a student borrows $20,000 over 4 years, at graduation he or she will owe $20,000.
While unsubsidized student loans start charging interest while the student is still in school, even though he or may or may not choose to pay the interest to decrease the later loan payments.
Students may or may not qualify for subsidized loans depending on their resources and their current financial means and needs. Applying for government student loans is very simple and many applications can be completed from the comfort of your own home using the computer.
The first step is to complete a FAFSA or Free Application for Federal Student Aid. You can determine your eligibility for FAFSA online by answering some simple questions and submitting an application. This application will let you know if you need to have parental consent to continue with the application and will also provide you with a set of worksheets that will allow you to determine what amount of government student loans you are eligible to receive.
You will then fill out the FAFSA online or print out the forms, complete them and return them to the address provided. Your online signature can be created as a PIN (personal identification number) which is used on any documents you have to submit.
Before submitting your application, you can answer the questions and even double check to make any corrections that need to be made after saving your application. A SAR (Student Aid Report) is provided after the submission of the FAFSA. Using the same PIN number and website as the FAFSA application, government student loan information is available online.
Schools that you have listed on the form will also have access to an electronic copy. Corrections and additions can be made to the processed SAR online by simply using your PIN to access the site.
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