Student Loans

Student loans are available to help offset educational expenses for the specific academic period. Borrowing student loans should be your last alternative. You should exhaust all other resources of financial assistance, including scholarships, state grants, and campus work-study before applying for a student loan. Applying for a student loan too soon may limit or exclude you from receiving grants/scholarships.

Click here on how to apply for a student loan at PPCC.

Direct Loans

Pikes Peak Community College is a new participant in the Federal Direct Loan Program - in which students borrow their Stafford Loan funds directly from the U.S. Department of Education rather than a lender. Prior to January 2009, PPCC participated in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). Effective Spring 2009, all Colorado Community Colleges will switch to Direct Lending which includes the Stafford Subsidized Loan; the Stafford Unsubsidized Loan; and the Direct Parent Loan for Students.

Why did PPCC enter the Direct Loan Program?

Federal Direct Lending provides the most stable source of funding available because the funds are provided directly by the U.S. Treasury. The instability of the debt markets and the uncertainty with what will happen next strongly influenced our decision to find the most secure solution possible.

What are the Primary Differences between DL and FFELP?

The primary difference is the source of the loan funding. Direct Loans come straight from the U.S. Dept of Education using funds obtained from the U.S. Treasury. This program offers student's one single source of contact since the loans are made, guaranteed and serviced by the Department of Education. In the FFEL Program the lender, guarantor and the servicer can involve any combination of banks and agencies across the country. This can create problems for students, especially in the event an error or problem in the processing of their student loans. Under the FFELP Program, the student and the school must first find out who is guaranteeing and who is sending the actual loans to the school. There could be many points of contact. Under DL, there is one single point of contact for students and their school to turn to with any problems that might arise.

The benefits of the Direct Loan Program are:

A guaranteed source of funding for student loans.
The option of an income-contingent repayment plan or an income based repayment plan when the student enters repayment. The student may have the option of paying a lesser amount based on their current household income.
Students in the DL Program who enter into public service jobs may have any remaining balance on their loans forgiven after ten years of public service work (While this option does not exist in the FFEL Programs, students who borrowed in this program can consolidate their loans into the DL Program in order to take advantage of this forgiveness program).
The PLUS loan for parents uses a more liberal credit assessment. More parents may qualify for this program in the credit assessment than FFEL.
The interest rate for the parent loan is 7.0% in the DL Program compared to 8.5% in the FFEL Program.
Most lenders offer benefits during repayment after a student makes payments from two to four years. Very few students end up receiving those benefits. In DL, students earn benefits after only one year.
Should a student make payments late under DL, the late fees charged are less than the late fees charged in the FFEL Program.

Loan Options

The following represent possible borrowing options beginning with the best value and proceeding to other less favorable loan options based on interest rates, loan terms and conditions, and repayment options. These loan options may be used alone or in combination with each other. Select the loan links below for more information about each option.

Option 1:

FEDERAL DIRECT STAFFORD SUBSIDIZED LOAN
- A federal loan program available to students depending on eligibility.
- PPCC will always try to certify the maximum subsidized loans before certifying any unsubsidized loans.

Option2:

FEDERAL DIRECT STAFFORD UNSUBSIDIZED LOAN
- A federal loan program available to students depending on eligibility and dependency status.

FEDERAL DIRECT PARENT -PLUS LOAN (only for dependent students)
- When undergraduate students need funding beyond the Stafford Loan may want to consider the PLUS loan.

Option 3:

ALTERNATIVE LOANS
- Students who need additional funds after considering the feasibility of the loan options in Steps 1 and 2 or students who are ineligible for federal aid, may need to apply for an alternative loan. It is PPCC's policy that our students apply for a Federal Direct Stafford Loan prior to an Alternative Loan as it is in the student's best interest.

There are other things that you might want to look at when consider a student loan:

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