It is so important to get a good education so that you can eventually make a decent living. Unfortunately most people have to go into debt in order to get that all important education. Student loans are the main thing that most students rely on in order to get through school. Very few students are lucky enough to have parents who will pay their way through University. It helps if you can get scholarships but you will need other money as well. Many financial aid experts will tell students that private student loans are the way to go. Others claim federal aid is good though it often falls short. The wise thing to do is probably to go with the federal aid and use the private student loans to fill in the gaps. You can get a lot of money with private student loans and you don't have to worry about applications deadlines. The problems with it are that you have to pay it back in half the time of federal aid and the interest rates are fixed at prime plus a margin at the discretion of the lending institution.