Financial Aid For College - How Single Moms Can Save Money When Paying Back a College Loan

If you're a single mother, there are several things you can do when you leave college to make sure that you are not having to live on bread and butter for the next several years paying back your college loans. Most of us have to pay back tens of thousands of dollars upon leaving college to the tune of several hundred or thousand dollars a month. Here's a way to lower those payments and have a better way of life after college has ended.

The first thing you can do is ask for a break. Under employed borrowers can defer paying back their college loans. Whether you took out a Stafford loan or a Perkins loan, you can extend this. Sometimes up to three years. You can also pay interest while you are deferring the payment so it does not accrue.

Another possibility is to refinance the loan. I remember when I left college that I had to refinance because of a higher percentage rate. This was actually automatic. Many of the loans sell themselves to other companies and you automatically receive a lower percentage rate from the new company.

This may be different now because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now defunct and you will not get such great deals anymore. However there are new companies that also allow you to stretch your payments out and cut the percentage rates to some degree. Doing this, you can save yourself a few hundred dollars a month.

The last thing you should consider is if you are going to college for the first time, or if you're a single mom headed to college to finish your degree, you may want to become a teacher. Look for federal grants such as the TEACH grants which is the teacher education assistance for college and higher education grant program which can provide up to $4000 a year for students that want to become teachers.

Regardless of your choice in life and what direction you are going in, you need to remember that you're going to have to pay the college institution that you're attending at some point. It is best to consider how much you are going to pay now, especially if you are a single mom, and also how much you can save on paying by applying for federal grants to offset this balance. In this way, you will save money when it comes time to paying for your college loans.