With all the talk about student debt, it’s easy to miss the PLUS loan numbers. PLUS loans are federal loans taken out by parents on the student’s behalf. The really scary thing about PLUS loans is that parents can borrow up to the full amount of tuition. Furthermore, eligibility for PLUS loans isn’t based on ability to repay the loan but rather your credit history. Just think about it, even with a great credit history, a bank won’t loan you money for $250,000 house without some evidence that you can make the payments. The government will.
50-50 Highlights: Public Universities with Highest Percentage of PLUS Loans by State
One reason why students should complete the 
Last summer, 
If you haven’t started your college application essays yet, it’s time to stop procrastinating and get to work. Why? Because even though the college application essay would seem to fall under academic tasks you have already mastered in high school, it is an essay after all, the reality is that it’s not. By that I mean it’s not an academic task.
Parents make sure that their kids are prepped for the college admissions process. They make sure they take the right classes, get the appropriate grades, study for the ACT or SAT, and participate in extracurricular activities. But do they make sure they’re equally ready to handle the financial aspects of independent living? Students may be able to do the math to calculate interest rates yet 
The idea behind listing 
Anyone who has been paying attention to college costs and financial aid has probably heard that there really isn’t one set sticker price for college. It’s a lot like airline tickets. People sitting next to each other on a flight probably paid very different amounts for their tickets depending on when they bought them. Like airline tickets, very few families actually pay the sticker price for college.
