How To Get Student Loan Debt Relief

Are you among one of the millions of college students saddled with a mountain of student loan debt? The average student loan debt is now at $22,500.  That is a lot of money to be owing when most salaries will now be around $30,000, sometimes more, sometimes less. And that's assuming you can find a job.

On this hub you'll get some ideas for student loan debt relief. You can find this information on several other sites as well. I just want to provide my thoughts, ideas and experiences.

Here is where you need to start:

http://www.finaid.org/loans/forgiveness.phtml

At the Fin Aid site you will learn about all the programs you can use to help you pay off your loans. Here are two sites that offer loan forgiveness:

AmeriCorps

Peace Corps

With the Obama Administration promoting national service, you can give one year of your time and help your community and get student loan forgiveness. This is one of the best ways to get student loan relief. Why? Because you are gaining valuable experience with helping other people.

You are helping people who are less fortunate than you and you get to see their life experiences and that can broaden your horizions. Maybe you do now know what you want to do with your life and by volunteering for a year you find your passion.

If volunteering is not for you, forbearance or deferment may be for you. If you are having trouble finding a job in your chosen field, you can go intern at a new job or start training for a new job that doesn't pay much and after your forbearance or deferment period is over, you'll be ready to resume paying your loans because you'll be making more money.

Next up is student loan debt consolidation. I've done it and it helps when you have only one monthly payment. You don't have to make out 7 different checks for 7 different loans. You can also lower your monthly payments by extending your loan repayment term.

You will pay more in interest over the life of the loan but it will make it more manageable.

This may also allow you to start in a low paying job and work your way up until you are making more money as you get promoted and the economy improves.

Another way to get student loan debt relief is to make more money.  This does not mean get another job. You may be having trouble just finding one job. So how can you even find a second job?

One word - blogging. You see all this whiz kids making $10,000 to $40,000 a month with their blogs. You can do the same thing. You may not make $40,000 but you can make a few thousand a month.

And you don't have to spend any money to start blogging. You can get a free blog on Blogger.com or Wordpress.com and start writing. You can make money with Google Adsense or selling affiliate products.

You can combine this with volunteering and you can patch together a series of part time jobs or freelance jobs and use all that money to pay off your loans. Be creative.

One last suggestion to find more money to pay your student loans is to get rid of your credit card debt. They marketed aggressively to you while you were in school and preyed on your innocence. Now you can fight back and eliminate your credit card debt. For this I would recommend debt settlement.

So there you have it, several ways to get student loan debt relief. Now go out there, start blogging, volunteer, and get those loans paid off.