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Contrary to popular belief, loans are not that bad of an idea even though you do have to pay back interest on them. Due to recent studies, they have shown that many students trying to attend grad school have turned to private loans as an asset to help them attend post-undergraduate training (Norstrom 1). There has actually been an increase of over 51% in prospective grad students vying for financial aid in the private loan department (Norstrom 1). .
Now even though loans are an easy way of attaining money for schooling, they would not be classified as "user friendly". .
Economic uncertainties, a diminishing job market, and rising tuition costs are being blamed for the second highest student loan default rate in 10 years this year, according to the U.S Department of Education.
-Ryan Floersheim.
Daily Lobo (University of New Mexico).
A default rate is the proportion of students that fail to pay back their college loans, and those rates have risen to an upwards of 5.4% (Floersheim 1). Now for you aspiring grad students, this does not mean "do not go out and get a loan for school" but rather these astonishing default rates should just be taken as a "be careful and make sure that you can pay back the loan" warning.
Besides student loans, there are two other main types of financial aid that are available for undergraduate-turning-graduate students in the form scholarships and/or grants which are pretty much one in the same. For space purposes we will just refer to these as scholarships. There are many scholarships that are out there for the taking, but you just need to have the drive to work for the "free money" that is available for yourself. Scholarships are a good source of financial aid because they reward the person receiving it for meeting the criteria of that certain scholarship such as being a woman with a high grade point average. There are however tedious steps on the road to receiving a scholarship.
