Are you one of those people who are about to take student loans in order to finance for the higher studies? Are you seeking student loans to pay for the expensive tuition fees and other college expenses? If your answer is in the affirmative, then before taking out this financial aid program, you should wait and first check out the modifications and new rules being implemented and modified under the Student Loan Laws.

For those students who are either entering college or graduating in the year 2012, there are certain things you should be aware of regarding the loan that has been disbursed to you to complete higher studies. Earlier the changes were supposed to take place in the year 2014 but Barack Obama, the President of USA has brought the changes in the year 2012 itself. The changes so made are divided into 2 different parts.

In the first part, there is a proposal of Pay as You Learn that will help the college graduates to give a small percentage of their earnings in making repayments of the loan which they have borrowed. Earlier the amount to be paid was 15 percent but now the students will have to pay just 10% of their income and not more than that under the new Student Loan Laws 2012. However the payment time period has been curtailed from 25 years to 20 years. So you can say that if there gain in terms of minimum repayment amount, there is a loss of 5 years in loan repayment.

In the second part, the students will have the option to consolidate their different student loans into a single one with 1 payment to be made at the end of the month. Students really find it harassing to pay the loan of various lenders on time but when the loan is consolidated, you just need to worry about one single loan only; provided you are opting for federal loans only. Borrowers under Student Loan Laws 2012 will also get a rebate of 0.5% and this will help around 5.8 million students who are filling out the FAFSA application form.

From 1st of July 2012, graduate students will not be able to take Federal Stafford Loans nor will they able to accumulate the interest rate as long as they are pursuing education in the college concerned. In order words there would not be any more Unsubsidized Stafford Loans because as of now there is a student loan debt of more than 18 billion dollars for the US Government to tackle. Under the Student Loan Laws 2012, borrowers will now have to pay 4 percent origination fees and 1 percent origination fees under the Federal Plus Loans and Stafford Loans respectively and it will come into effect from first week of July. Also there will be a deduction of 0.25 percentage in the present rate of interest for different student loans provided by the US Federal Government.