Lead with quotes from the interviews with  Haley Foster and Autumn Jester who expressed some confusion on these issues in the videos

Many student loan borrowers do not know the difference between different types of loans that are available to them, a credit counselor at CCOA (spell out name on first reference) said.

(Revise: All material in red was copied directly from the websites: https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized  or

https://www.drew.edu/financial-aid/loans/

That’s not journalism.

Put it in your words)

Subsidized and unsubsidized loans are federal student loans for eligible students to help cover the cost of higher education at a four-year college or university, community college, or trade, career or technical school, according to the Federal Student Aid website (include hyperlink to this site).

Direct subsidized loans are available to undergraduate students with financial need, according to the Federal Student Aid website. Direct unsubsidized loans are available to undergraduate and graduate students, and there is no requirement to demonstrate financial need.

The federal government pays the interest for direct subsidized loans while the student is in college or while the loan is in deferment, according to the Drew University website (Include hyperlink). Interest begins accruing for direct unsubsidized loans as soon as the loan is taken out.

Private and federal student loans have similar features but when looked at are abruptly different. First, private student loans are offered by private lenders such as a local banks, credit unions or national banks, or online lenders.(fyi, online lenders have to be some sort of a bank) Whereas federal loans are only offered through the U.S. Department of Education, according to the Student Loan Hero website (hyperlink). Private student loans can also be used to cover both an undergraduate or graduate student’s costs of higher education. They can cover other expenditures such as students who are completing their residency after medical school or law students taking the bar exam.

Many lenders offer private student loans to both students and their parents but students may have a harder time qualifying for a loan on their own if a student does not have a good credit score as proof of income, according to Student Loan Hero. A student could also qualify by having a cosigner. Each private lender can set its own qualifications for a loan but the government sets the rules for federal student loans.

Private student loans can also have fixed or variable interest rates and vary from lender to lender. Federal loans, however, all come with a fixed set of interest rates. Also, repayment requirements on private loans vary from lender to lender as well and most will give you between five to 20 years to repay your loans, according to Student Loan Hero. Meanwhile federal loans have several repayment options such as a 10-year Standard Repayment Plan or income-driven repayment (IDR) plans that will set your monthly payments based on your income. Also, and most importantly, private lenders do not offer loan forgiveness programs, but federal student loans can be forgiven in certain circumstances.

The U.S. Department of Education provided this explanatory video about the basics of student loans