<p>Looking over the various loans for students and parents, students of course get a better deal on the interest. Has anyone had their child take out the max (or more) at the lower stafford rate and then helped them pay them back? I haven't looked into this extensively, but I met a woman at work that had her daughter take out the max of subsidized and some unsubsidized and she said she will help her pay some of it later on. She also will log on Sallie Mae and pay the interest on the unsubsidized loans so she wont have the extra amount added to it over the years. I thought you had a max overall for both loans.
Has anyone taken this route, even though your child is responsible for the loan, one really cares who pays for it and if might save some money overall. Maybe she mis-spoke and meant she had other student loans, not just stafford.</p>
<p>Our experience is as follows:</p>
<p>My son's freshman year, he took out the sub. stafford loan and had work study. my son paid a portion of the remainder of the bill and we used a home equity loan to pay the balance.</p>
<p>His sophomore year he took out the sub. stafford loan and a Sallie Mae Signature Loan. This loan is not subsidized but does have a deferred payment and a lower interest rate than the home equity loan.</p>
<p>We figure that he could take the signature loan at a lower interest rate and have deferred payments and we would make payments on the interest while he is in school. </p>
<p>We decided that after he graduates we might be in a better position to help him pay off the student loans.</p>
<p>check out the Sallie Mae website for specific info concerning the loans.</p>
<p>I found that paying off the interest does help. I just paid 45.00 on my son's freshman stafford which accumulated since Sept....not much yet, but it does add up. Hopefully next year he'll get subsidized. I told him if I come into any extra money in the future (how, I'm not sure), I'll help him whittle down some of it and he told me if he gets a good job one day that pays well, he'll help me pay off ones I took for him. Nice of him to offer, I can only pray the future with college/loans etc. doesn't get worse!</p>