Student Loans: Making Them More Affordable

About two-thirds of this year's crop of college graduates will be leaving their campuses with student debt.
This is not good news for the grads, who face an unwelcoming job market. The unemployment rate for new college graduates is higher than the general population. And by one estimate, 40% of young college grads, who are employed, possess jobs that don't require a degree.

College grads who end up working at the mall - or worse - should check out a two-year-old federal program that goes by the clunky name of Income Based Repayment or IBR.

Making Student Debt More Affordable

As you can see from the chart below, a person earning $15,000 or less would make no payments no matter how much student debt he or she had racked up. Someone earning $30,000 would owe $172 a month.

Only debtors with federal student loans, not private ones, can qualify for IBR.

You can learn much more about this college debt program by visiting IBRinfo.org and FinAid.

Lynn O'Shaughnessy is author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller, and she also writes her own college blog at The College Solution.

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Lynn O'Shaughnessy

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Lynn O'Shaughnessy is a best-selling author, consultant and speaker on issues that parents with college-bound teenagers face. She explains how families can make college more affordable through her website TheCollegeSolution.com; her financial workbook, Shrinking the Cost of College; and the new second edition of her Amazon best-selling book, The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price.

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