"The offer a late-night commercial makes to college students is tempting: spend 15 minutes filling out an online application and in just days you can get a check for up to $40,000 that you won't have to pay back until you graduate," the El Paso Times reports. "But financial-aid experts say college students need to beware of offers that are too good to be true, especially when it comes to borrowing large amounts of money. 'We're concerned with the large number of students that come to us asking questions about these loans,' said Raul Lerma, the director of financial aid at the University of Texas at El Paso. 'They're not regulated like federal student loans are, and that could mean that students will take on a huge debt even before they graduate from college.' Lerma said private student loans are subject to credit rating, have higher annual percentage rates than federal student loans and in some cases can't be consolidated."