There is an upper limit on the amount you can take in these loans and it’s depressingly low, well below the tuition of many private (and some public) colleges. To finance the rest you’re looking at much higher rates.
Yo, only parent and graduate loans are close to that, of federal loans (private loans are another issue, and also probably involve an unaccredited institution that doesn't qualify for federal loans):
Yo, just because a new student getting loans right now can get 4% doesn't mean that 7% wasn't absolutely the norm for many people over the past decades. Anyone in their 30s has 6 or 7% or more on their loans, before ZIRP took over.
And since raising rates is the way they're going to stop inflation, like it or not, that 4% is going to end real soon and kids will be back to 5-7% in the next few years.
> Yo, just because a new student getting loans right now can get 4% doesn't mean that 7% wasn't absolutely the norm for many people over the past decades
Subsidized loans were at 6.80% for the first two years they used fixed interest (the academic years 2006-2007 and 2007-2008); this is the highest they have ever been under the fixed interest regime; there are three additional years they were at 5% or higher.
Under the variable interest regime before that, they spent some time at 7% or above in the 1990s, but those would have fallen with general interest rates.
Yo, student loan rates are like 7%. It's not a payday loan, but it is still essentially unfinanceable.