The Student Loan Map

If you look at recent media coverage of higher education in the United States, you will immediately begin noticing a very widespread problem: our students are falling into unmanageable debt.

Some say this is due to the fact that our colleges cost too much money. Take a look at California, for example, which over the last 30 years has seen an average tuition spike of more than 1000 percent across its three public university types.

Others, however, blame this debt trend on financial education—or lack thereof.

Most of our brand new adults of 18 years old are forced to take out student loans if they want to pay for a higher education. Few of these borrowers know about the intricacies of the loans they sign, and fewer still actually read the fine print of their contracts. Couple that with the fact that the government offers so many different types of loans (Perkins, Grad PLUS, Consolidation, Parent PLUS, and Direct loans), and it becomes difficult to expect any of these young adults to fully comprehend what they are getting themselves into.

To help combat that lack of education, loans.org has set out to make a simple guide surrounding federal student loans.

This infographic below is meant to accompany that guide and help students visualize exactly what kind of government-backed student loan is right for them (if any).

If you would like to share this infographic with your friends, family, readers, or students, please feel free to copy and paste the embed code found below.