They say that primary and secondary schools, especially the latter, are the formative years of an individual. Here, they can learn a lot about themselves and find out more about what their likes and dislikes, experience puberty, learning slowly what is right and what is wrong, how to interact with other people, slowly discovering something about their own self and, eventually, become the person that they want to be. When they step into college, they will have an idea of what their individual career in life will be, that is, if they can step through college.

Unfortunately, not everyone can step to college because of financial restraints. Both students and their parents will have a hard time trying to find out where to find finances to pay for their tuition. This is where student loans come in. But, they need to know a lot of things before they can obtain loan for college studies. Two of them are student loan counseling and federal student loan exit counseling.

Student loan counseling is the process in which students and parents must undergo so that they will be able to understand further their financial obligations, the penalties that will be incurred to them if they fail to pay and a lot more. Federal student loan exit counseling, on the other hand, is required when a person is about to graduate from college.

It is also a requirement for those who might decide to leave school prematurely or would decide to drop below half time enrollment. It is a process in which it will provide very vital information to prepare a student (and the parents) to repay their federal student loans. Those who are required to undergo exit counseling are those who have received subsidized, unsubsidized loans under the Direct Loan Program.

During counseling, the student is required to provide information like name, contact information from email address to telephone numbers of the following people: the closest living relative, two references who are not related to the borrower that are currently living in the U.S. and the employer if the borrower gets a job.

It is very important that one should know all of these things so that they can be able to concentrate more on their studies later rather than trying to think where to find financial aid to help them get through college.