With the high cost of attending college, many students and their families have had to take out one or more student loans. When students graduate, decent-paying jobs are not always available. As a result, many borrowers report difficulty repaying their student loans, and loan servicers and debt collectors are not always easy to work with. The following information is for anyone seeking to repay student loans.

Know Your Loans

The first thing you should do if you have difficulty repaying a student loan is to determine what kind of loan you have. This will affect your rights. There are two main types of student loans: (1) federal student loans-which are guaranteed or issued by the federal government, and (2) private or non-federal student loans-which are issued by private lenders, a state agency, or by the schools themselves.

Federal Student Loans

The largest provider of student loans is the U.S. Government. Today, federal student loans are issued directly from the U.S. Department of Education. The federal government is your lender, unlike the past when the federal government guaranteed the loans, but used private lenders as middlemen to issue the loans. Lees verder →