Student Loans. If you are lucky, you wont need one. But, not everyone is that lucky.

Recently, I read an article written by CNNMoney.com discussing the burdens of paying off private student loans. In some cases these college grad’s had to leave the country because their payments were to high to be paying every month.

One grad named Chris graduated with $160,000 in dept and his monthly payments came to $2,400 a month. Lets be realistic, no college grad will be making more than $2,400 a month while paying for rent and bills.

Thus, Chris and others fled the country.

I do not reccomend leaving your family, friends, and loved ones because your dept is too high: therefore, here are some reccomendations that CNNMoney.com found:

• “If your income isn’t sufficient to repay a federal loan, you can apply for an economic hardship deferment or forbearance which would suspend or reduce your monthly payments. To find out if you qualify for these programs, check out the hardship calculator at http://www.finaid.org/.”

• “If you have federal loans through the Direct Loan program, you may qualify for an income contingent repayment plan. In this case your payments are based on your income and your debt load .”

• “These steps must be taken before you default on your loan. If your loan is already in default, you won’t qualify for deferments or forbearances. If you can’t resolve an issue, contact the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman at http://www.ombudsman.ed.gov/ or call 1-877-557-2575.”

• “If you have defaulted on a federal loan, you can rehabilitate yourself. It will require you to make nine to twelve full payments of some agreed-upon amounts within a certain time period to the Department of Education. For more information on this, contact the Department at 1-800-621-3115.”

• “And there’s another way to get help if you’re buried under student loans. Talk to a non-profit counselor.”

• “The counseling session should be free of charge. Make sure you ask if the agency works with student loans. And in addition to helping you with your student loan payments, these agencies can work with you to manage your spending and your budget. If you are put on a managed debt program, there is typically a small fee. To find a non-profit credit counselor in your area go to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling at www.nfcc.org.”

(Jacky)