Private student loan fees

Private loans often carry an origination fee. Origination fees are a one-time charge based on the amount of the loan. They can be taken out of the total loan amount or added on top of the total loan amount, often at the borrower's preference. Some lenders offer low-interest, 0-fee loans, but these are usually available only to those with high credit scores (800 or more). Each percentage point on the front-end fee gets paid once, while each percentage point on the interest rate is calculated and paid throughout the life of the loan. Some have suggested that this makes the interest rate more critical than the origination fee.
In fact, there is any easy solution to the fee-vs.-rate question: All lenders are legally required to provide you a statement of the "APR (Annual Percentage Rate)" for the loan before you sign a promissory note and commit to it. Unlike the "base" rate, this rate includes any fees charged and can be thought of as the "effective" interest rate including actual interest, fees, etc. When comparing loans, it may be easier to compare APR rather than "rate" to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison. APR is the best yardstick to compare loans that have the same repayment term; however, if the repayment terms are different, APR becomes a less-perfect comparison tool. With different term loans, consumers often look to 'total financing costs' to understand their financing options.
Eligible loan programs generally issue loans based on the credit history of the applicant and any applicable cosigner/co-endorser/coborrower. This is in contrast to federal loan programs that deal primarily with need-based criteria, as defined by the EFC and the FAFSA. For many students, this is a great advantage to private loan programs, as their families may have too much income or too many assets to qualify for federal aid but insufficient assets and income to pay for school without assistance.
Additionally, many international students in the United States can obtain private loans (they are ineligible for federal loans in many cases) with a cosigner who is a United States citizen or permanent resident.
The terms for alternative loans vary from lender to lender. A common suggestion is to shop around on ALL terms, not just respond to "rates as low as..." tactics that are sometimes little more than bait-and-switch. Examples of other borrower terms and benefits that vary by lender are deferments (amount of time after leaving school before payments start) and forebearences (a period when payments are temporarily stopped due to financial or other hardship). These policies are solely based on the contract between lender and borrower and not set by Department of Education policies.
Federally subsidized consolidations are not available for alternative student loans, though several lenders offer private consolidation programs. Borrowers of privately subsidized student loans may face the same restrictions to bankruptcy discharge as for government based loans: New legislation makes clear that these loans are, like federal student loans, not dischargeable under bankruptcy. Even before the legislation was passed, however, private student loans that were guaranteed 'in whole or in part' by a nonprofit entity are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy (and most private loans, regardless of the lender, were indeed guaranteed by a nonprofit).