How Student Loans Affect Your Credit Score

We’ve become a nation of student loan debtors. We’ve all heard the saying that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. These days, one additional certainty is the student loan: increasingly, higher education is necessary for jobs in every industry. But do you know how your student loans affect your credit score? When I was a bright young thing fresh out of school, I didn’t have a clue. Going to a private school, all I knew was that I had to...

How To Overcome the Stress of Student Loan Debt

It’s easy to feel financially stuck in a cycle of debt when you have a huge outstanding student loan balance. From 2004 to 2014, student loan debt increased by 56% with the average American student now owing over $28,000. For some, that amount is even much larger. For example, attending a private undergraduate university or continuing onto graduate school can easily set you back almost six-figures in student loans. When you make a big purchase or when...

3 Fast Ways to Compare Student Loans Using Excel

While there are a lot of great loan calculators out, it can be hard to know where to look when you just want to understand how much you’re going to be paying for a student loan. If you’re starting to shop around for loans, you may want a general picture of how much you’re going to pay, and if you’re refinancing your existing debt, you may want a tool to compare your options based on how far you’ve already come with repayment. Either way, check out these...

Ouch! Dentist Has $520,000 in Student Loans: Where to Begin

A new dentist posted this question on Reddit: where should he start with his $520,000 debt for student loans? Six-figure student loan debt is not entirely unreasonable for a dental student, if you go by the rule that you should graduate with no more debt than your starting salary. But he is starting with a $129,000 salary, so his debt load is more than four times his salary. %VIRTUAL-article-sponsoredlinks%Dentists’ salaries range from $75,003 to...

Morality And Student Loans

Thanks to recent legislative decisions, student loans are all over the news. While politicians debate the future of our loan interest rates, we’re still required to pay our loans every month. When we’re sick or underemployed or with finances otherwise spread thin, we still pay them. Why? Because we borrowed the money and we need to pay it back. Responsible borrowers don’t dispute this fact (though by the look of comments directed toward us on some online...

Falling Behind On Your Student Loan Debt Can Get You Fired

Like most students, Robert Bowman paid for his degrees through student loans. It took time, but eventually he was ready to be a lawyer. Until, that is, five state judges decided that all of his efforts weren’t good enough, according to the New York Times. In layman’s terms, Bowman had fallen too far behind on his student debt and therefore didn’t deserve to be a lawyer. This story is unique to neither New York nor law, and it...

How Does Student Loan Interest Work?

Do you know how student loan interest works? When I was a student, I sure didn’t: Several months before graduating from college, I and a group of my classmates gathered in one of the prettiest rooms on campus. On this particular day, the room was filled with financial aid office employees poised to give lots of boring PowerPoint presentations. Each of us were handed a shiny, new folder with a photo of a college senior in a cap and gown, holding a...

The Current State of Student Loans

The author of this guest post is Kristen Hawley. Kristen is a freelance writer with a special interest in student loan debt legislation thanks to borrowing six figures to finance her own education. She blogs here to help others understand exactly what’s happening in the student loan universe and how to best manage their current situations for future success. Student loans: many of us have (or have had) them; few of us actually like talking about them....

How to Decide If You Should Refinance Your Student Loans

Refinancing your student loans seems to be the thing to do lately. In the past year, I’ve had several friends tell me how they were able to lower their interest rate significantly by refinancing their loans with private loan providers. I decided to take a closer look at what all the student loan refinancing hype was all about and if it was really worth it. Types of Student Loans There are two types of student loans: federal and private. The Federal...

Ask the Get Out of Debt Guy: Options for Student Loan Co-Signers

Here at ReadyForZero, we’re all about taking a holistic view of your finances. While we want to focus on helping you get out of debt, there are many ways that you can optimize your finances to both get out of debt and build wealth. One of the most important aspects of this is to educate yourself – which is why we cover so many topics on our blog and our resource centers. But now we’re going to take a step further to make sure that we address everything...