Obtaining Student Loans Without The Need For A Cosigner
August 19, 2008
As education costs continue to increase from one year to the next it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the money necessary for a college education and a lot of students spend more time worrying about raising the funds needed than they do working at their studies. If this was not bad enough all too many students discover that once they have graduated they are left with so much loan debt that it quite simply drags them down and will probably take years to repay. If this paints a grim picture then for a lot of students the problem of funding their education is magnified by a requirement to raise the necessary money without the availability of a cosigner to their loans.
These days college funding is not simply a matter of looking to a single source of finance for the majority of students but is a matter of putting together a portfolio of funds from a variety of different sources.
The first action for all students must be to try to find scholarships and grants. A lot of students simply overlook this source of essentially free money altogether and yet you would be surprised at just how many scholarships and grants are available today. In a lot of cases of course the sums of money available are reasonably small but nonetheless can be extremely helpful as a part of your total funding plan.
The next port of call ought to be federal loan funding through schemes such as Perkins and Stafford loans which you can get as both unsubsidized and subsidized loans. Perkins loans particularly attractive because of their relatively low interest rate but are also the most difficult loans to get and need a student to show particular financial need.
Unhappily at this point in spite of the fact that you will have begun to create your portfolio it is unlikely that it will give you sufficient money and you will need to start casting your net wider and here you will have two routes to follow.
If you can get the assistance and support of a guardian or parent then they can apply for a federal student PLUS loan to cover the shortfall between the funding which you have been able to obtain yourself and the overall cost of attending college. Student PLUS loans are subject to your parent or guardian having a reasonable credit rating but the requirements are not as strict as those which would be applied by a private lender.
If you do not have a parent or guardian you can turn to or simply decide to go it alone then you will need to obtain a loan from a private lender and exactly how simple that will be will depend to a large extent on your own credit history. In most cases lenders will be happy to grant you a loan if you have a good credit rating and will ask for a cosigner if you have no credit history against which they can make their lending decision or have a bad credit rating. Nonetheless, with a growing number of people with a bad credit rating today there is also a rising number of lenders who will grant loans without the requirement for a cosigner and so it is merely a question of shopping around.
A bad credit loan with no need for a cosigner will naturally cost you more than a standard good credit loan but if you take your time and shop around carefully you will obtain a loan at a reasonable rather than extortionate rate of interest.