Obtaining College Loans With No Cosigner
With the cost of education continuing to increase from one year to the next it is getting increasingly difficult to obtain the money necessary for a college education and many students spend more time worrying about raising the funds needed than they do working at their studies. As if this was not bad enough in itself far too many students find that once they have left college they are saddled with so much debt that it simply drags them down and will probably take years to repay. If this seems to be a grim picture then for far too many students the problem of financing an education is increased by a need to raise the money needed without the availability of a cosigner to their loans.
College funding these days is not merely a matter of turning to a single source of finance for the majority of students but is a matter of building a portfolio of funds from a range of different sources.
The first port of call for all students must be to try to find scholarships and grants. Far too many students ignore this source of effectively free money altogether and yet you would be surprised at just how many scholarships and grants are available these days. In most cases of course the amounts of money available are relatively small but even so can be extremely helpful as one part of your overall funding plan.
The next source of funding ought to be federal loans through schemes like Stafford and Perkins loans which are offered as both unsubsidized and subsidized loans. Perkins loans especially useful because of their low interest rate but are also the most difficult loans to get and require students to demonstrate particular financial need.
Sorry to say at this point although you will have begun to build your portfolio it is unlikely that this will give you enough money and you will now have to start casting your net wider and here you will have two paths to follow.
If you are fortunate enough to have the assistance and support of a parent or guardian then they could apply for a federal student PLUS loan to cover the shortfall between the funding you have been able to find yourself and the total cost of attending college. Student PLUS loans are subject to the parent or guardian having a reasonable credit history but the requirements are not as strict as those applied by a private lender.
If you have not got a parent or guardian you can turn to or decide to go it alone then you will have to seek a private loan and just how simple this will be will depend to a large degree on your personal credit history. In almost all cases lenders will be happy to offer you a loan as long as you have a good credit history and will ask for a cosigner if you have no credit history against which they can make their lending decision or have a poor credit history. Nevertheless, with a growing number of people with a poor credit history nowadays there is also a rising number of lenders who are prepared to offer loans without the need for a cosigner and so it is merely a case of shopping around.
A bad credit loan without a need for a cosigner will of course cost you more than a standard good credit loan although if you take your time and shop around with care you will obtain a loan at a fair rather than extortionate rate of interest.