About Types of Student Loans
Types of Student Loans is a plain-English guide to how U.S. student loans work — the different federal and private loan types, what each is for, and the trade-offs between them. Our goal is to make a confusing, high-stakes topic clear and accurate.
We are not a lender, a school, or a financial advisor, and nothing here is financial advice. The loan information on our pages is drawn from official sources — primarily U.S. Federal Student Aid (studentaid.gov) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Because interest rates and limits change from year to year, we describe how they're set rather than quoting figures that quickly go stale — and we always point you to studentaid.gov for the current numbers.
We help people compare loan and refinance options, and we may earn a commission from partners linked on this site, at no extra cost to you. This never changes the information we show you, and we keep our guidance neutral and non-predatory: we make no rate or approval promises, and we plainly flag that refinancing federal loans means giving up federal protections.