4 WHO Wants to Know? My parents want me to e phone home while I'm away at school. What's the best way to keep telephone costs down? A Check with your long-dis- * tance company. Chances are there is a special plan that lets you call , home and pay one predetermined /? hourly rate. If you call on weekends and at night, many long-distance companies offer a flat hourly rate, no matter where you call. So you can call your girlfriend in New York, and your par- ents in New Jersey, and know that both calls cost only a set price. It may also pay to comparison- shop. Look at your phone bills for the past several months to get an idea of your average bill. Then call the long- distance phone companies to compare rates. Most of them have toll-free 800 numbers. If you make calls from a pay phone, you can save as much as $1.05 a call by charging calls to a personal telephone card number rather than calling col- lect. You can use any long-distance company's phone card to charge calls made over its network or over its com- petitors' networks. A few new long-distance companies are offering a flat monthly rate to peo- ple who make a lot of long-distance calls. Beware of offers that allow you to make as many calls as you like for a set fee each month. These companies typically work on a pay-now-dial-later basis. You pay your bill at the begin- ning of each month for future service, and these companies may not deliver the service you paid for. Flat-rate companies buy phone lines from the larger phone companies, then resell the phone service to individuals. They don't want to buy more phone lines than they may need, so if they under- estimate customer usage, you're with- out phone service. 0 0 0 ~,4 ~+ 0lr QU 71 ~ i ll *z L * I may need a loan to * help meet my tuition bills. Where do I look for the money? Make an appointment with * a lender-a bank, savings and loan, or credit union-to talk about Guaranteed Student Loans. If you meet certain eligibility require- ments, you may borrow up to $2,625 per academic year for the first two years and $4,000 annually for the re- maining years, for a maximum loan of $17,250. Graduate students are eligible for loans up to $7,500 annually, to a maxi- mum loan of $54,750. Repayment generally begins six months after graduation. The minimum annual payment is $600. Because these education loans are guaranteed by the federal govern- ment, lenders' qualifying standards are usually less stringent than for other education loans. The federal govern- ment, however, guarantees loans for needy students only. Prior to the pass- age of the 1986 legislation on higher education, students with annual family incomes of $30,000 or less could bor- row through the Guaranteed Student Loan Program with no questions asked. Now all students have to prove financial need by filling out a form supplied by their school. If you're interested in a loan, you have plenty of company. The College Board reports that one-third to one- half of all students do some borrowing. Another option is the Student Loan Marketing Association, a govern- ment-chartered, publicly owned cor- poration, that offers loans called Sal- lie Maes. The Association buys guar- anteed loans from lenders, pools them, and issues its own securities. Thus, lenders are able to clear old loans off their books and offer new ones. PLUS (Parent Loans for Under- graduate Students) loans are federally funded and you do not have to prove financial need to receive one. The maximum PLUS loan is $4,000 a year and parents can get these loans through participating financial insti- tutions. Repayment begins within 60 days after you take out a PLUS loan. a PHOTOGRAPHY BY SUSAN J. FRIEDMAN