Saturday, April 5, 2014

Another Option For Students Is Community Based Student Loans

By Cornelius Nunev


There are specific things like community-based student loans, which many might not be conscious of. Essentially, some areas have groups which take donations to give students cash, a lot like crowd funding.

A crowd-sourcing opportunity

Students who are going to university and need some cash to do it can be able to get a community-based student loan dependent upon the area they go, according to a Daily Finance article. These community associations are showing up all over the country, and MarketWatch has much of the details.

It is just like the recent "crowd sourcing" that has been going on. The funds are all put into one big pot and loans are made from it.

MarketWatch pointed out that it is not even a brand new idea since the Canton Student Loan Organization in Ohio has been around since 1922. The organization has given over 5,000 students more than $27 million in loans.

The loans are paid back with interest just like other crowd funded personal loans websites such as Prosper.

Definitely not government

From the information available on MarketWatch, Daily Finance and Bankrate, community-based student loans, or rather student loans from community student or university aid organizations, fit somewhere between federal school loans and private loans cost-wise.

A loan from a community association, community bank or credit union is still a private loan, but it's typically lower-cost than going to Sallie Mae, which according to CBS accounted for 46 percent of all grievances made to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about school loans all on their lonesome.

Private loans can be as high as 16 percent interest, and federal Stafford loans almost always have the very best rates. Community-based loans typically are much harsher and require large forms of collateral, according to MarketWatch, but interest can range from no interest at all to around 8 percent.

Do some homework

The small organizations do not have a lot of cash to them, which is why the loans are usually pretty small. It is enough to cover tuition and books, but generally it is not much more than that, according to Bankrate.

You may want to go to a credit union for their loan consolidation programs, and there are also programs comparable to these ones that offer college financing, according to CBS. The terms are typically pretty good. Make sure parents and students are both doing the research to figure out what is best.



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