Manageable Student Loans Education is a very important choice in any person’s life. There are many things that you have to consider as you begin to prepare yourself for the big step, in order to fully educate yourself for what is to come. Me, for example, I had to go through a step-by-step process in order to gain what help I have with my education. Research played a big key in what I know today, along with advice from other people in my life. When I first considered going back to school, I spoke to my mother (who had also decided to return to school) about student loans and programs that would help fund me. She gave me a few websites to look into, that explained more to me what student loans were and how important they would be to attain. After some consideration, and talking to advisors, I had gained enough knowledge on them for me to make my decision. I currently do not have a job, but I was told that I would be given a grace period –6 months for Federal Stafford Loans and 9 months for Federal Perkins Loans– to attain a job, and start paying back my loans. At the beginning of my school period, I was approved for two grants, a Pale Grant and a Federal Loan (I cannot remember the name of it) to help me pay for school. Even though I do have to pay them back later on, it will help me get through school a bit easier. From everything that I have learned from this class and from my Financial Advisor, there are steps that I can take in order to help myself with my loans. For example; my advisor told me about a program that will help me –if/when I plan to go back to school after this round– with my funding. The program in which I speak of, happens to deal with freezing my tuition through graduation. Sounds scary, right? Well, it’s really not. What it is, is a program that makes your tuition stay at the same rate throughout your time at the school. This means that for each year, your tuition –funding from an outside source– won’t gain any interest rate until after you graduate. I also learned that I could opt to send the unused money from my tuition, back to the program that sent it out. This is actually a good idea. Instead of gaining the check and spending the money on something else, you can send it back to help reduce the loan payment. There are times I think I should send back the money that I receive through the checks, but then I sit and think about how much it could help by setting it into a savings account and letting it gain interest. I could use this to