Advantages and disadvantages of educational loans: the view of experts

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The times when everyone could count on getting free higher education and guaranteed employment, unfortunately, are far behind. Of course, there are still state-funded places in modern universities, but their number is decreasing every year. And given that the cost of paid education is increasing from year to year, and not every family has such funds, many parents are beginning to think about obtaining an educational loan.

Pros

The most important advantage is undoubtedly the opportunity to get an education at the university of your dreams. Moreover, as a rule, debt repayment is calculated in such a way that only interest must be paid during training, and the loan body can be returned to the bank after graduation. There are several other benefits to gettingstudent loan:

• loans are issued not only to those who plan to enter the inpatient department, but also to students who prefer part-time or evening studies;
• programs apply not only to universities and institutes, but also to other educational institutions: academies, colleges, technical schools;
• an increasing number of banks offer the possibility of starting the payment of principal and interest accrued on it, not from the moment of receiving a diploma, but three months after that, that is, the graduate has time to find a job;
• the possibility of government subsidies is also very useful: using it, you can halve the cost of an educational loan;
• the bank always independently transfers the required amount to the account of the educational institution and does it on time.

Every year, like all other types of loans, this type is becoming more accessible to people - banks offer the most loyal and favorable conditions.

Cons

Every medal has a downside, and student loans are no exception:

• probably the main drawback is that most banks agree to cooperate only with those educational institutions that have state accreditation;
• banks are quite attentive not only to the choice of the university itself, but also to the profession that the borrower wants to master, evaluate its prospects, relevance and reliability;
• practicallythere is always a need to make a deposit or provide guarantors to the bank (the latter, as a rule, are the student's relatives, and a car, real estate or securities can be used as collateral);
• If a student does not pass a session or decides to stop studying, termination of the transaction will cost him a very round sum.

Before applying for an educational loan, you should clearly weigh all the pros and cons, as well as choose a profitable bank offer.

Terms and Interest

The first bank to introduce such programs was Sberbank. However, this trend was soon picked up by many other institutions. However, most of them provide an opportunity to get an educational loan in Russia on similar conditions:

• loan is issued in rubles;
• return period is 10-11 years;
• interest rate – 12-20%.

Some banks, among other things, provide an opportunity to get a loan for studying abroad, but in this case, the age of the borrower must be over 21 years old, and the interest rate is much higher.