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College Loans
Thinking about your college loans can be very stressful because it's a lot of money. For most people their college loans are the biggest investment they've made in their lives. The only thing bigger will be buying a home in the future. What you need to think about is getting the knowledge out of college that you need to get a good job. Sometimes people think of college as just the next step in the schooling process but it's far more than that.
Remember when 10th grade was much harder than 9th grade and how 11th got even harder? Well college is a few steps above that and it's specified to the career of your choice. You want to soak in as much information as you can in college so that you can get a great job after and pay off your student loans sooner than you thought.
Things To Remember About Your Student Loans
1. The more you're paying the more you should be getting out of it. College professors are highly trained professionals in a specific field. Most likely they have even worked in that field in the past. Pick their brain and get real live information out of it.
2. Do an internship program even if you're not getting paid. It will give you the real life experience to relate the college material to. Hands on experience is very good to have and adding that to your resume will show motivation and determination on your part.
3. Don't get discouraged by bad grades. Obviously you can't fail out of college, but getting the information is the key point. If you don't get every piece of information and only get a 70% on a test instead of a 100% then it's alright.
Things You Should Do To Keep The Lowest Monthly Payment On You Student Loans
1. Consolidate your loans. I'm sure you hear that a lot and you may not know exactly how to do it but it's actually not that hard. You need to put all the loans together and make one loan out of them. Let's say you have 3 college loans for $7,000 each. They probably all have different interest rates as well. So you want to get one new student loan for $21,000 with a better interest rate which makes a lower monthly payment.
2. Shop for the best interest rate. Their are a few lenders out there who specialize in college loans and offer very good interest rates. Make sure to check them all because I'm sure a lot of people don't and they get stuck paying credit card interest rates which makes them very hard to pay down.
3. Pay down extra principal. That's similar to paying extra money into your auto loan. The quicker you pay it down the quicker you get rid of the monthly payment.
4. Use a student loan calcualtor, or any interest calculator, to determine the different monthly payment options available to you.in different year amounts and different interest rates to see what fits you best for your situation.
Try to think about your college loans as a game that you need to win. If the calculator says you will pay them off in 10 years, see what it takes to do it in 5 years. If it's reasonable then try to keep up with it. Any time you get extra money for a birthday or holiday then put it toward your college loans. Even work a couple extra hours a week on the side to get some extra cash for your loans. You'll be very surprised 6 months down the road when you look back and say, "Imagine if I didn't start paying down my student loans?" | 
