With education costs continuing to increase year on year it is becoming increasingly difficult to source the funds necessary for a college education and more and more students spend more time thinking about raising the money needed than they do working at their studies. As if this was not bad enough in itself all too many students find that once they have graduated they are saddled with so much loan debt that it quite simply drags them down and will probably take many years to pay off. Now, if this seems to be a grim picture then for a lot of students the problem of funding an education is compounded by a requirement to raise the funds needed without having a cosigner to their loan applications.
College funding today is not simply a matter of turning to one single source of finance for the majority of students but is a matter of creating a portfolio of funds from various different sources.
The first action for every student must be to try to find scholarships and grants. Far too many students simply ignore this source of effectively free money altogether and yet it is surprising just how many scholarships and grants are available today. In a lot of cases of course the sums of money in question are reasonably small but nonetheless can be very useful as one part of your total funding plan.
The next source of funding should be federal loan funding through schemes such as Stafford and Perkins loans which you can get as both subsidized and unsubsidized loans. Perkins loans especially useful because of their low rate of interest but are also the hardest loans to get and require a student to demonstrate particular financial need.
Regrettably at this point although you will have begun to build your portfolio it is unlikely that this will give you enough funds and you will now need to begin casting your net wider and will have two paths to follow.
If you can get the help and support of either a parent or guardian then they can apply for a federal student PLUS loan to cover the shortfall between the money you have been able to find yourself and the overall cost of attending college. Student PLUS loans are conditional upon the guardian or parent having a reasonable credit rating but the requirements are generally not as stringent as those which would be applied by a private lender.
If you do not have a guardian or parent you can turn to or simply decide to go it alone then you will need to seek a private loan and just how easy that will be will depend to a large extent on your personal credit history. In the majority of cases private lenders will be quite happy to offer you a loan as long as you have a good credit rating and will require you to have a cosigner if you do not have a credit history against which they can make their decision or have a bad credit history. However, with more and more people with a poor credit history nowadays there is also an increasing number of private lenders who are prepared to offer loans without the requirement for a cosigner and so it is simply a question of shopping around.
A bad credit loan with no need for a cosigner will of course be more expensive than a normal good credit loan although if you take your time and shop around carefully you will find a loan at a fair rather than extortionate interest rate.
