Student loans

[Hitmen]

I'm in a pretty shitty situation right now, I got accepted to my school for this fall really late (mid/end of june) and they didn't have my information from the federal aid thing. I had done it at the beginning of the year for the school I was at before I even applied to this one, and was stupid and forgot to add the new school until later. What it looks like right now is I'm not going to be able to get any delicious moneys by the time I need for the school to not get angry at me, and am probably going to have to take out way more money in a crappy loan than I was expecting. Does anyone who has done this have any advice on what to look for, what to stay away from? I need to do this soon but I don't want to get fucked in the process. I really wanted to avoid this but there is no way I can afford it otherwise. I have about $900 in the bank, and that is more than either of my parents. And I'm looking at a bill of ~$18k :(

[Newby]

Heh. I was supposed to take a loan out to help build credit/pay for school, and all I know is that Wells Fargo had something that was nifty. https://www.wellsfargo.com/student/undergrad/collegiate/ was what my dad had a hard-on over.

[Chavo]

I'd recommend going through your university.  You want loans that are Sallie Mae financed and highly preferably subsidized (no interest while in school).  Private loans are way, way worse in regards to interest rate and almost certainly unsubsidized or even require you to start repaying while in school.

The actual interest rate system keeps changing and it's likely that all of your loans will have their own rates but Sallie Mae does keep track of this stuff for you.  You won't really be able to shop around in this regard (assuming you go through your school).  All you can typically choose is the institution brokering the transaction.

[rabbit]

If it's too big a problem, you can always ask to defer for a year so that you can get money to give them.  Most schools would rather you start paying them a bit later than not at all.