I’m about to borrow for school.

The cheapest loan is the one you never take.

The amount you borrow is the single biggest lever on this loan. Every decision that comes later — which repayment plan to pick, whether to pay extra or invest, whether to refinance — is downstream of one number you set today. Here is why it’s worth getting right.

The typical bachelor’s borrower owes about $30,000 at graduation, on a plan written for ten years that, in practice, stretches closer to twenty. None of that is fixed yet. The smaller the number you sign for, the lighter every one of those years gets — and that is why the front of the loan matters more than any move you can make after it.

Hunt the money you never pay back — relentlessly.

Scholarships and grants are gifts; work-study is a campus job that pays you by the hour. None of the three is a loan, so none of it has to be repaid, and every dollar of it is a dollar you don’t borrow, don’t pay interest on, and don’t carry for the better part of twenty years. This is the cheapest money you will ever touch — so chase it like a job, because dollar for dollar it is the best-paid one a student will ever have.

Go after it aggressively, and go after it systematically:

• File the FAFSA the day it opens. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (the federal form at studentaid.gov) opens on October 1 for the next school year, and it’s the one gate to federal grants, work-study, and most state and school aid — and some of that money is first-come, first-served, so filing early can be worth serious money. You reapply every year you’re in school, and it costs nothing but an afternoon.
• Chase the small, local awards, not just the famous ones. A national $10,000 scholarship draws thousands of applicants; a $500 award from a local employer, a community group, or your own department draws a handful. Ten small wins spend exactly like one big one, and your odds are far better. Apply to everything you plausibly qualify for.
• Block out hours for it. Treat applications like a part-time job for a few weeks each year: a couple of hours a week, one strong essay you re-tailor each time. A $500 award for three hours of writing is a wage almost no first job will match.
• Don’t stop once you enroll. Most awards don’t renew on their own, and new ones open every year — including department and major-specific ones you only qualify for once you’re in. Reapply every single year you are a student.

If you must borrow, go federal first.

When free money and savings still leave a gap, federal loans fill it before private ones. Federal loans carry the protections this whole topic keeps coming back to — income-driven payments that scale to what you earn, forbearance when life breaks, forgiveness paths, and discharge if you die or become disabled. A private loan has none of that by law; it’s a bare bank loan priced on your credit.

Use your full federal eligibility before you touch a private loan. A private loan should be the last gap-filler you reach for, never the first — and a gap big enough to need one is itself a sign to look hard at the price of the school.

Borrow against the salary, not the dream.

Here is the rule that travels: keep your total borrowing under what you expect to earn in your first year in the field. Not sure what that is? The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook (bls.gov/ooh) lists median pay by field; search by the job title you’re aiming for, not your major. Since new grads usually start under the median, lean toward the low end. Stay under it and the standard ten-year payment stays at a share of your pay most people can carry — tight in the early years, but livable. Blow past it and the payment starts crowding out rent, saving, and the start of everything else.

And take only what you need. Your aid pays the school first; anything left over after the bill comes back to you as a refund check — automatically, usually within the first few weeks of term, and spendable like cash. That convenience is the trap: the refund is still borrowed money, so spending it on living costs you could trim is the easiest balance to never owe in the first place. If the check turns out bigger than the gap you needed, you have a fix: return all or part of the federal portion within 120 days of disbursement and owe no interest or fees on what you send back (the student-loans guide has the steps).

See the payment before you sign.

A balance is an abstraction; a monthly payment is not. The fastest way to make a loan feel real is to look at what it costs every month for ten years — before you accept it, while you can still borrow less.

One move this week.

The perfect school list and the scholarship hunt can take their time. One thing can’t wait — it gets decided the moment you click “accept” on that aid portal.

Before you accept any loan, add up the free aid you haven’t claimed yet and the gap you genuinely need to cover — then borrow only that gap, federal first, and keep the total under a year’s expected pay. The amount you sign for is the one number on this entire loan you will never get to change again. It’s worth an afternoon now.

Taking less than the full offer is a normal option, not a special favor: in the aid portal you lower the amount in the loan box, or accept some loans and decline the ones you don’t need. The loans are the lines labeled Direct Subsidized and Direct Unsubsidized; leave the grants and work-study alone, since that’s money you never repay. If the portal won’t let you, the financial-aid office will adjust it by phone.