How Does Interest Rate Factor Into College Loan Costs?

When you’re calculating college costs, you can’t forget about the interest rate.
Well, you can forget, which is the problem with all loans. You stare at the sticker price on a car, and consumers often don’t think about the interest rate attached. You buy a $200,000 home, for instance, and you don’t think about the 3.92 percent interest rate — meaning that the total cost of the home over 30 years of payments is actually $340,427.