How to Pay Off Student Loans?

Students often borrow money to cover their expenses for pursuing studies. The next question that comes up is how to pay off the student loan in due time. Student loans are sure of great help when students need help with financial expenses to cover their higher education costs. However, students must also know how to pay off loans in time to ensure there are no debts. In this blog, you’ll read about a few tips to pay off student loans in time.

Prepare a Budget

The most important step towards clearing student loans is by making a budget and religiously adhering to it. Firstly, students must make a budget and know where exactly they spend money. With this, they might realise the extra money that they are spending and try to cut those expenses. By reducing monthly expenditure, students can use that money to pay off student loans.

Also Read: Best Ways to Use Credit Cards for College Students

Make Bi-weekly Payments

Another effective way to clear student loans faster and eliminate the debt cost is to pay bi-weekly instead of monthly. This implies that instead of making the payment at once, students can divide it into two and pay the bill in halves every two weeks, Although this doesn’t sound very effective, it does help as one extra payment gets added to your loan repayment every year.

Clear the Capitalised Interest

Capitalized interest is the interest that is incurred when students are not paying the charges while pursuing their studies thus it gets added to the balance making a large loan amount. So to make sure that doesn’t happen students must make payments every month while the interest accrues, thus reducing the student loan balance amount. Students who are in the grace period can focus on paying off the accrued interest that can help lower their total student loan balance immensely.

Strategise a Repayment Plan 

Once you have decided on a strategy to pay off your student loan, make sure you stick to it. Your repayment strategy must be based on your financial situation that takes into regard regular expenses incurred. Follow a plan that helps you pay off student loans easier and faster as once you’re loan free you can work for yourself and save money.

Also Read: How to Manage Money While Studying Abroad?

Refinancing Student Loans

Refinancing education loans essentially means consolidating various loans into one single loan from a private borrower at a lower interest rate, if possible. If the option of refinancing is available, students must consider refinancing their loans to ensure loans are paid off easily. 

Engage in Side Work

If you have free time after work, try engaging yourself in a side hustle that helps you earn a little more. This can help you pay back your student loan in a much lesser time. The extra money can be added to your monthly savings also. This will help in paying off the student loan easily.

Also Read: Part Time Jobs for College Students

Make Use of Salary Raises and Tax Refunds

After getting a job, the first thing students must try getting done is clearing the student loan. To do so students must make use of the salary raises they get while working to repay more than the specified amount. On getting a promotion or an appraisal at work, make sure you use that money to clear off your debts first and then go for choosing different forms of luxuries for yourself. 

Pay More than the Minimum Amount

Students must also make it a point to manage payments smartly. To ensure that, they can pay extra than the minimum amount required as there is no penalty on that. And the extra payment gets added to the repayment list. Thus, reducing the payment duration and helping to pay off loans faster. 

These were some of the ways through which one can pay off student loans. We hope this helped you devise a strategy for your loan repayment. Handling student loans proactively helps in paying them off sooner. Like mentioned, there are multiple ways you could use to manage your debt more effectively. To know more about the many scholarships or best-suited loans for your course, get in touch with our Leverage Edu experts and they will help you with the same. Book your free e-meeting today!