WOBURN, Mass. — Maria Ferraguto is finding it difficult to relax this summer. She’s too busy figuring out how to pay for her son Michael’s senior year at the College of the Holy Cross.

Some of the stress feels familiar. Maria and her husband, Paul, have been writing checks to Holy Cross for eight years. Their older son, Mark, graduated from the private Worcester, Mass., college in 2005, and the Woburn family has always struggled to keep up with rising tuition and fees, which now total about $47,500 annually.

But this year, the Ferragutos, like many families, are especially concerned. Since the unprecedented collapse of the student loan market, financing a college education has become more complicated than ever. For the Ferragutos, it started in April with a letter from the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority, the nonprofit lender for thousands of students who attend colleges and universities in Massachusetts. The letter said the authority would no longer offer federal loans, including low-interest Stafford and parent loans. Even worse, the authority said money for private student loans was in doubt.

“It’s really a crunch thing,” Maria said. “We’re just a typical middle-class family trying to make ends meet.”

The news came amid a flurry of similar announcements. Nationwide, at least 50 nonprofits, major banks and government agencies have stopped making either federal or private loans for education. Some have halted student lending altogether. As a result, financial aid officers at colleges and universities this year waited longer than normal for commitments from lenders willing to make student loans. They also fielded lots of calls from worried parents and had to delay mailing letters informing students of their loan options.

Another blow came from Citi-bank, which in April said it would no longer lend to students at colleges where it did only minimal business, including Holy Cross.

“I was shocked,” said Lynne Myers, director of financial aid at Holy Cross. “That’s the point where we said that was unacceptable to us. It’s time we found a more secure market for our loans.”

Holy Cross and some other schools have decided to sign on to the federal government’s direct loan program. Lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, in May began pushing the program, which has existed since the 1990s but has been little used over the last decade. Effectively, it makes Holy Cross a loan broker, connecting students to federal loans and reducing the need for them to apply to banks or other lenders for assistance. Holy Cross estimates the program will allow it to facilitate about $20 million worth of loans this year.

Credit crisis

The student loan crisis had its roots in last summer’s subprime mortgage debacle, which roiled other debt markets and ultimately shut down a little-known part of the bond market that student lenders had come to rely upon — auction-rate securities. Auction-rate bonds let nonprofit student lenders and other organizations borrow billions of dollars at low interest rates. The system worked as long as the big investment banks that helped issue the debt and handled the trading of the bonds attracted enough buyers to regular auctions.

The market for student loan bonds began to falter in the fall. On top of the subprime troubles, a new federal law cut into the profits lenders could earn on student loans. By February, the auction market completely collapsed, as demand for the bonds dropped off, and Wall Street banks refused to prop it up. Suddenly, lenders in the nuts-and-bolts business of writing loans for millions of students were left without their ready source of cash.

The federal government stepped in after student lenders testified about the looming crisis before Congress. “Our concerns started heightening in the March-April time frame,” said David Dunn, chief of staff at the Department of Education. “Our first and foremost priority was to ensure that students had access to loans.”

President Bush in May signed a bill co-sponsored by Kennedy that freed up Treasury funds to buy student loans from lenders and provide fresh capital for loans.

Direct loan rates are attractive, according to Myers — 6.8 percent for Stafford loans and 6 percent for families whose income level and other factors qualify them for subsidized Stafford loans. The federal government allows Stafford loans of $6,000 for freshmen and sophomores, and $5,000 for juniors and seniors. The government-backed program is named for Robert T. Stafford, a former Republican senator from Vermont who died in 2006.

Direct loans also have lower fees and often more favorable terms than those secured through banks. While most banks charge 2 percent to process and manage loans, the federal government discounts that to 0.5 percent, as long as students repay loans on time.

In addition, some other loan money is becoming available — albeit close to the due date for tuition bills. For instance, the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority recently said it will have funds available to make private loans this fall, at fixed rates.

A family effort

The Ferragutos are applying to borrow money through the loan program at Holy Cross but do not yet know how much they will receive. Even with grants from the school and a work-study program, they will still be responsible for a $24,000 bill. Like many Americans, the family has tapped every available source to fund their sons’ educations, including home equity loans and borrowing against their 401(k) retirement plan. One year, Michael took out a student loan in his own name.

“It’s always just a little more than we say we can afford,” Maria said.

Especially since Michael, 20, a music and French major, is not getting the $6,000 music scholarship he was awarded last year. The school said the funds came from a limited endowment and were not available this year. In light of that, Maria has sent a letter of appeal asking Holy Cross to consider providing more assistance. The school reviews such appeals after the Aug. 1 tuition due date.

In the meantime, everyone in the Ferraguto family is helping out. Michael works as a cashier at a restaurant, and he’s selling subscriptions for Boston Baroque, an orchestra and choral group. His father, a salesman for a concrete company, drives a limousine on weekends to earn extra money.

Maria, a former physical therapist, cannot work due to a serious illness. Still, she is the family’s master of financial aid forms and loan applications. “The forms are overwhelming,” she said. “There are years I’ve done this out of a hospital bed.”

Michael said he feels fortunate to have so much backup. His parents are doing all they can, he said, and want him to focus on his violin lessons, not the minutiae of loan documents.

While the Ferragutos wait to hear about the status of the direct loan, Holy Cross has assured them they won’t be charged a $250 late fee if Michael’s $12,029 balance for the fall semester isn’t paid by the due date.

“I guess it’s going to be OK,” Maria said. “It’s just an extra hassle.”