Are Refund Checks Real?

By: Shanice Miller, founder of DebtFreeCollegeGrad.com

After one of my last posts, I've been getting a lot of questions about college refund checks. One of the most common questions that I received was, "Can you really get refund checks back from the college? Is that really true?" The answer is yes.

What do you think happens when you get more money than it costs to attend college? It's just like when you overpay a bill. Or like when you purchase something that costs $5 and you only have a $20 bill. The store does not get to keep the difference. You get the change back. The same applies when you go to college and get more money than what it costs to attend. You get the change back. With college, the "change" that you would get from that $20 bill is in the form of a refund check.

The college will give you refund checks when you get more money than what it costs to attend college. No, I don't mean have your grandparents or parents make a bigger payment than what you need, of course that will work too, but that defeats the purpose. You get more money than what the college costs by winning scholarships.

Money Saving Tip for Your Master's Degree

By: Shanice Miller, founder of DebtFreeCollegeGrad.com

Have you ever thought about getting your Master's degree?

If you have, you have probably started looking at the fees associated with it. A Master's degree can be

pretty expensive for only two years worth of education. For example, if you want to get a Master's degree at Harvard University, you can expect to pay $40,000 per year for only tuition--- this doesn't include room and board or other fees. Usually it takes 2 years (sometimes more) to complete your Master's degree so you are looking at $80,000 total at the very least. That will be a lot of money, especially if you already have a student loan tab from your undergraduate degree.

To help decrease the costs associated with obtaining a Master's degree, I am going to share with you a money saving tip for your Master's degree.

One money saving tip for people that are thinking about getting a Master's degree is to get the Master's degree overseas. Usually the Master's degree programs overseas only take 1 year to complete. That means even if the tuition is still the same, you would only have to pay $40,000 versus $80,000 for your Master's degree in the United States so you already saving 50% of the cost. However, tuition is not the same. In addition to the overseas Master's degrees taking less time to complete, they are also cheaper.

Although going overseas to get a Master's degree will be cheaper and quicker, you might want to check with your potential employers first to make sure that they will accept it.

Parent Plus Loan, Who Is To Blame?

In the last two posts titled, "Parents, Are You To Blame," we discussed the rapidly increasing amount of student loan debt through Stafford loans and the Parent plus loan.

There we posed the question: who is actually to blame for all of this student loan debt that has been accumulating over the years through the parent plus loan.

If you didn't get to read the first part of the article, you can view it here.

If you missed the second part of the article, view it here.

In this last part of the three part series, we will come to the conclusion on who is to blame for the student loan debt crisis through Stafford loans, private loans, and the parent plus loan.

 

One last thing that I noticed when I was in college was that the students who were responsible for paying for their own college education took college more seriously than the students whose parents took the responsibility. I remember being in my Pre-Calculus class with another student. He was a junior at the time (and I was just a freshman). I asked him what he was majoring in. He said he didn't know. He was just going to college because his parents told him to and they were paying for it. If you are a junior in college and you still don't know your major, you are most likely not graduating in 4 years. You are going to need an extra year or two years (maybe more) before you are able to graduate unless you just major in general studies. Parents, understand that an extra year or two in college means extra money that it will cost before graduation. For some, this will equate to more student loans, including the parent plus loan, that will have to be taken out.

So who is actually to blame for the student loan debt crisis through parent plus loans?

Sure, we can blame the government and colleges. They shouldn't have allowed it to get this out of control. But ultimately, students and parents are to blame for the student loan debt crisis through stafford, private, and parent plus loans. At the end of the day, it is your debt that you signed up for. Each person has to take responsibility for their own actions.

One last note: Parents and students, if you don't know something or don't understand something completely, you should seek help from a professional.

By: Shanice Miller, Founder of DebtFreeCollegeGrad.com

Parents, Are You To BLAME for Stafford Loans?

In the last post titled, "Parents, Are You To Blame for Student Loan Debt," we discussed the rapidly increasing amount of student loan debt through Stafford loans.

There we posed the question: who is actually to blame for all of this student loan debt that has been accumulating over the years through Stafford loans. If you didn't get to read the first part of the article, you can view it here.

In this continuation of the article, we will further discuss the student loan debt crisis and who is to blame for all of these Stafford loans.

Reminiscing back on my college days, I remember a particular roommate that my friend had. Right after the semester started he was so excited because he was getting money back from the college. Yes, refund checks are wonderful. But, not this refund check. See this student wasn't getting a refund check back from an abundance of scholarships, he was getting a refund check back for an abundance of loans--- Stafford loans! Now that isn't good at all.

Right now some people might be wondering how can that be. Let me explain. When you sign up for Stafford loans or any other loans, you can either chose to sign up for the maximum amount that you are eligible for or you can just opt to take out what you need. Now some people would take out the maximum amount of Stafford loans to use for other expenses like books and living expenses.

This particular student would take out the maximum amount of money that he qualified for in Stafford loans. He would use some of the Stafford loans on books, but with the rest of it, he would buy things that made him happy like clothes, video games, or the latest phone. At the time he just saw it as "free money" but that "free money" was actually a debt tab that he was quickly increasing.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't the only student that did this. Parents, students do NOT need to take out the maximum amount of money that they qualify for in Stafford loans or any other student loans. You should only take out what is necessary to cover tuition and the school fees--- nothing more. Taking Stafford loan money and using it for the child's pleasure is a sure way to be swimming in debt upon college graduation.

In the next post, we will follow up on one last reason why we have a student loan debt crisis and how you can avoid your student from being part of that statistic so stay tuned!

By: Shanice Miller, Founder of DebtFreeCollegeGrad.com