As we already know that the government shutdown has been intact for the past 20 day’s now. Government shutdown affects federal employees for the most part which concisely affects us in things we do daily, but what does it mean when it comes to our financial aid?

For short government shutdowns which happen, nothing major and usually last a few days, but what about the long shutdowns like we have right now.

As you know some of the major things that are affecting our everyday life include: national parks, benefits, and other things that are free and we love are completely cut.

To answer the beginning question whether it affects your financial aid, then no – this part of government keeps going everyday.

Will My Financial Aid Process Timely?

Simple answer is yes! The government shutdown will not affect your eligibility for financial aid or the disbursement date for the financial aid. So, no need to worry about you having your classes dropped because you did not have money available from financial aid. All of the department of education websites are up and running, so there would not be any conflict in processing any of your FAFSA information.

This also applies to the student loans that you borrowed from other financial institutions. Many, if not all are still up and running, so you should see any effect on your student loans.

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What are the Bad News?

(Credit to CNN, picture of trash can near White House)

Well, if you are applying for loan discharges because of the medical disability then you are unfortunately out of luck. Another thing is the government shutdown does not change the fact if you are making payments, the date does not change and you will still need to make the payments for student loans.

Best Alternatives to Federal Student Loans

There is one major problem with federal student loans and it is the word “Federal” itself. What I mean by that is it is government controlled and as much as you might be getting the best possible rates out there you think, there are many drawbacks about this.

How I look at this is the government encouraging you to get into debt and unfortunately this is just the start from here. Sure, you are getting education but the major problem is if you were to encounter some issue in the future, you will have a problem trying to solve it. Compare it to the DMV office or any other government ran organization.

Some of the best alternatives would be checking the rates and it is always the best to stay on top of this because you don’t want to be overpaying in interest. Here’s the best alternative to check the rates

Credible – Credible is absolutely the best to compare the lenders around and get the best interest. It helps you compare lenders and rates for student loan refinancing and private student loans. And all is free and does not run your credit.

What is refinancing? When you refinance, you take out a new, lower-interest loan to pay off your existing higher-interest loans and you really need to check with Credible if you believe your interest is high.

Another alternative is LendKey. Although I believe the credible is on of the best, I believe the LendKey is not far behind and they really are great for many reasons and LendKey strongly stay behind the quality of their borrowers where the average refinancing borrower make $65,000 per year which makes it that the quality borrowers are using their services. you can check what rates you can get here.

My Input on Government Shutdown

I do not like talking about politics because unfortunately to many this is a very sensitive topic and therefore I am not choosing the side of the government. But one thing that as much as I believe that it is wrong to have the federal employees having their jobs taken away and these are the people that also have bills to pay and because many don’t even have emergency fund today, these 20 days and counting is a borderline to many families financially.

On the good side from my perspective. As much as we think of this as terrible, our government actually has sides that disagree with each other when if you compare to other countries where the government is ran mostly by money and bribes.

I am not going to go into more details about my input, but I hope I made my point. You can share your point in the comments section below as well, I would love to hear your opinions on this.

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