1. Begin your search by looking at the award letter for your course and calculate just which need based loans you can apply for and how much money these loans would give you.
2. Next, look at your full financial picture including such things as education costs, the provision of any grant or scholarship money and money being provided by your family and determine how much money you need to borrow.
3. Never take on more loans than you need. It does not matter how much money a lender offer you and you should never borrow more money than you need to meet both your short and medium term needs.
4. Look at working as an alternative, or supplement, to borrowing. While working at a job while you are attending college might seem like an additional burden it could well be far better than struggling with high repayments on your loans after college.
5. Apply for any student loans as soon as you can. You need to ensure that you get the loans you need and that your money arrives before your bills start to appear, so do not delay once you know how much you need to borrow and get your application in without delay.
6. Make sure that you follow the instruction on any loan application as mistakes could well lead to your application being turned down or to a delay in the receipt of funds.
7. If you are applying for Stafford or Direct student loans then do not be surprised if the amount that is paid to the college is less than the amount you signed for because a fee of up to four percent will be deducted from your loan. This deduction will be made before the check is sent to your college.
8. Once you have taken your first student loan you should begin to keep a track of your borrowing so that you know just what your monthly repayments will be in the future. It is all too easy to be lulled into a false sense of security while you are at college and not making repayments, but you might well be in for a shock once you have left college and have to start making monthly repayments. You will find a number of student loan calculators available which will handle the complicated mathematics for you.
9. If you find, having taken on as much federal loan debt as you can, that you still need additional loans from a private lender then take professional advice before starting your search for additional funding.
10. If you find yourself taking on private loan funding then you must carefully rework your college budget to take account of the servicing of such additional loans while you are attending college.
TheStudentLoansCenter.com provides information on college funding and also looks at such things as student loans with no credit check