If you are attending graduate school, you are probably wondering how you will manage to pay for your education. Graduate school can be expensive, but you can reduce the costs by assisting professors teach undergraduate courses and by taking loans such as Stafford loans. A Stafford loan graduate can reduce the amount of overall money that he or she owes because Graduate Stafford loans offer students lower interest rates than other educational loans that are available.

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If you thought paying for your undergraduate degree was an expensive proposition, take a deep breath before you start to tally how much it can cost to get a graduate degree. Whether you are seeking a master's in education or a master's in business administration (also known as an MBA), obtaining a master's degree can cost more than $50,000 in tuition, fees, and books. While you may have been able to find merit scholarships to help you to pay for your undergraduate degree, there are very few available for graduate degree programs. Luckily, however, there are loans available to help you to pay for your graduate degree program.

Student loans for graduate education often are much more cost effective means of obtaining the money necessary to pay for your degree than dipping in your 401(k), home equity line of credit, or, worse, maxing out your credit cards. Graduate loans from the government, such as those from Sallie Mae, are available at lower interest rates than you would pay on loans from your bank or another lending institution.

In addition to paying lower interest rates on your student loans, if you qualify for a federally subsidized graduate loan, then the lender will not accrue interest on your loan during the time that you are in graduate school. To enjoy this benefit you may need to take a minimal number of credits each semester or each calendar year. To find out what rules govern the graduate loan options available to you, you should speak with a financial aid officer at your college or university.

Regardless of whether your graduate loan's interest is subsidized while you are in graduate school or not, you still will enjoy one other generous financial benefit from it; the ability to deduct the interest that you pay on your graduate student loan each year. While this benefit is one that you will enjoy in future years, after you have finished your graduate degree program, it is an important one to bear in mind as you compare graduate loan interest rates, terms of repayment, and other factors as you decide how you can best finance your graduate degree program.

There are many things a person needs to know when considering attending a graduate school at a university in the United States. First, in order to be a qualified candidate for a Master's degree level graduate program, you must obtain a bachelor's degree from an accredited four year program at a college or university. In order to be accepted into a quality graduate level program, your bachelor's degree must be completed in good standing. Most universities look for a quality Grade Point Average (GPA) in considering a graduate school applicant. A student hoping to attend graduate school should have a B average (3.0) GPA or higher. Another item virtually all graduate programs consider is the GRE. The GRE (Graduate Record Exam) is an examination aimed at testing a student's verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and analytical writing skills. The test is scored on a scale from 0 to 800 and most respectable graduate programs require a score of at least 500, while higher ranked programs often require a minimum score of 600 or even 700. This test can be taken prior to graduation or after graduation. In reviewing applicants most graduate programs will also look at a student's extracirricular activities and acheivements as well as letters of recommendation. It is often important to have several of these letters and usually who they are from is just as important as the content.

Once you have been accepted to a graduate school and you begin classes, you will probably find that graduate classes are very different than undergraduate. One of the main differences is class size. Even at very large universities, the graduate programs will often have classes of less than ten people. This gives students much more one on one time with professors and allows for greater detail in study. Depending on the major, many graduate programs consist more of independent research in a lab or in the field than lectures in a classroom. This is usually true of the hard sciences such as chemistry, biology, physics, and even engineering. Students attending graduate programs in Liberal Arts will often find that reading assignments are much longer and more difficult, and class time is spent more on discussion than explanation of the material.

Obtaining a graduate degree from a university may be a lot of work but it is an invaluable experience that will better prepare you to face the world.