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Shopping around for student loans with low interest rates is very important. The amount of money that most students need to borrow for their tuition, lab fees, study materials, and living expenses can run into the tens of thousands of dollars and sometimes even more. Rarely do students and even their parents have enough money to fully support the pursuit of a degree even if they've been saving from the time the child was young. Getting student loans with low interest is going to save the student and the parents hundreds and even thousands of dollars over the life of that loan. Let's take a look at some numbers so that you can see how this adds up.

Most students attend schools where tuition and other fees add up to about $9,000 per year. That's $36,000 for a four-year degree. To understand how student loans with low interest can affect your payment schedule and amount paid over the years, let's suppose that your student loans have an 8% interest rate. If you paid $435 a month it would take ten years or 120 months to pay down that debt and you will wind up paying over $16,000 in interest charges over the course of that loan.

That's like paying almost two more years of college tuition in interest charges alone!

To further illustrate how getting student loans with low interest can help you, let's lower that interest rate to 7%, a difference of only 1 percentage point. At the same monthly payment of $435, it would only take you 114 months or nine and half years to pay off and you would pay just over $13,000 in interest charges. That means more than $3,000 you've saved in interest payments; that's $3,000 in your pocket rather than the pocket of your lender.

You can find out your own differences when it comes to student loans with low interest by going to any online loan calculator and then punch in the cost of your education and different interest rate percentages. You might be very surprised to find out how much extra you would pay in interest charges or how much you might save, depending upon your rate. Even a point or half of a point can mean hundreds and even thousands of dollars saved, or not.

So where do you get student loans with low interest? Most turn to the federal government as they have many programs designed to get students the money they need for school. Sometimes those applying to the federal government for student loans with low interest are surprised to find out that they're eligible for subsidized loans, meaning that the government will cover some of the cost of their loan. They may also find many scholarships and grants for which they're eligible, which is like free money for school.

Wherever your source, make sure you do your homework and really shop around for loans as a lower interest rate will mean literally thousands of dollars in your pocket.

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By William Coupland View William's Blog

Insider Secrets to Student Scholarships, Loans and Grants Do you have your questions and fears of funding your college education? Have you ever wondered if there was a place you could find all the information that would help you get the right aid? This guide gives you all the answers.