Ways To Eliminate College Loan Debt

$22,550 - that is the new number for average college debt. When I left school my college loan debt was $38,000. And this was 7 years ago. Guess how much student loan debt I still have now in 2009 - $38,000. Ouch. What you are going to learn on this hub are ways to eliminate college loan debt so you don't end up like me.

The place you want to go to find out about college debt is FinAid.org's loan forgiveness page.

This site will outline all the ways you can qualify for getting your loans forgiven and eliminated.

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

Here's some of the ways you will will find:

• Perform volunteer work;
• Perform military service;
• Teach or practice medicine in certain types of communities; or,
• Meet other criteria specified by the forgiveness program.

Basically, you have to give your time to get some money.

But that's all fine and good but you also have student credit card debt and maybe you have a family too and you need money and cannot afford to volunteer your time with Americorps or start teaching. You cannot afford to work for free right now.

So what are you to do?

If you are stuck with a bunch of student credit card debt, eliminate it with debt settlement. You are young and don't need to file bankruptcy. Get those balances eliminated and don't let the credit card companies make you their slave for the rest of your life.

Then with the money you save from getting your credit cards paid off, you can use it to pay to your student loans.

What about forbearance and deferment?

That's why I still have roughly the same amount of debt that I left with 7 years later. For 2 years I deferred my loans due to a divorce. So for 2 years I did not make any payments and the interest just kept accruing and piling up and adding to my balance. If I had to do that again, I would not use it.

I understand it can help you if you are struggling with your bills. But use it with caution.

What about student loan debt consolidation?

Yep, I used that too. I have subsidized and unsubsidized loans and consolidated all my loans from 5 and 1/2 years of college into one loan with one low monthly payment. And it can be yours too for only 300 easy monthly payments of $190.

You can extend your loan repayment period up to 25 years. It's like you're taking out another mortgage.

Make more money to pay your bills.

Look for freelance jobs to make extra money. Turn off the TV, make some websites, make some Hubpages, make some Squidoo lens, etc. There are a lot of people making an extra $300 to $500 a month from their Hubs and you can do it to.

You can do the HubChallenge and create 100 hubs in 30 days and start making an extra $10 to $15 a day with Google Adsense. That can go long way to helping you get extra money to pay off and eliminate your college loan debt.

And best of all, once you make the hubs, you don't have to mess with them again. You can get paid over and over for the same hour or so of work.

Those are the best ways I know of to help you get your college debts paid off. Try a few and get those debts paid off. You don't want Uncle Sam going to your funeral 70 years from now asking your kids to pay off your loans.