<p>I have a quick question. After FASFA and a scholarship, our college student still has a balance and I was wondering if anyone had any advice on a parent loan with the best interest rates or any thoughts on the parent plus loan. Appreciate any advice that anyone has to offer</p>
<p><a href=“Read this before you take out a Parent PLUS loan - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>Read this before you take out a Parent PLUS loan - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums;
<p>This thread has a lot of opinions from parents who have borrowed the PLUS loan themselves. Definitely an interesting read.</p>
<p>The benefit of a Plus Loan is that if the parent or child dies, then the loan is cancelled.</p>
<p>If you take out a private loan and your child were to sadly die, you would still owe the loan.</p>
<p>You can mitigate that by taking out life insurance on your child for the amounts that you will be borrowing for the next four years.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your advice. I didn’t realize that and you know it is sad when we have to think about tragic events like that. I saw on the news a few weeks ago where a mother of 4 tragically died from a sudden illness and her parents were raising her 3 children and were financially responsible for her college debt. You would think in a situation such as thought our federal government would step in and forgive that debt. Don’t mean to get on that soapbox.</p>
<p>^^
I know that story. The loans the parents had co-signed were NOT federal loans. If they had been, they would have been forgiven. What we were hearing about were the ADDITIONAL PRIVATE student loans that they had taken out, BEYOND federal student loans…those were from banks and not forgiven. The feds have no authority to order a private bank loan to be forgiven…nor should they have that power. </p>
<p>Likely she also had fed loans (not just those big bank loans), and those were forgiven…but the parents were now stuck with the co-signed loans while also having the burden of raising the 3 kids. </p>
<p>Frankly, the amount of loans they borrowed for a BSN degree was crazy and excessive. Even if their D had not died, there was NO WAY she would have been able to pay them back along with raising 3 young kids on her own. Her parents made an unwise decision enabling a bad choice.</p>
<p>@mcneemm </p>