The reality of getting private student loans when you have bad credit is that you either are going to have to come up with a credit-worthy cosigner or improve your credit to get approved. The myth is that there are in existence private student loans no cosigner, in which the private lender will not require the borrower to apply with a cosigner to get approved if they have significant credit issues. This is indeed a myth, as the vast majority of private student loan lenders are going to mandate that you have a cosigner if you have poor credit, with virtually no exceptions across the board.

While it is a nice to think that you can obtain private student loans without a cosigner, the harsh reality is that you are going to need a cosigner when you have credit issues—bottom line! Much of this confusion has come about as a result of the extinguishing of such no cosigner private student loan programs once the credit-crunch took effect a few years ago. Before the economy took a turn for the worse and the credit markets tightened, there were private college loan lenders who were offering bad credit student loans no cosigner to people who had poor credit or no credit and couldn’t get the money they needed to attend university. While these types of lenders were still small in number, they were in existence to a small degree, and there were at least a chance at getting a no cosigner student loan if you had significant credit issues and you couldn’t come up with a credit-worthy cosigner.

This again all changed once the credit markets tightened a few years ago as a result of the recession, and now there are virtually no private student loan lenders out there who currently will approve a private loan to any individual with a bad credit history and no cosigner. If you find yourself in this situation then your best bet if you are dead-set on getting a private student loan without cosigner is to either take the steps to improve your credit, or look to other types of financing beyond conventional private student loans. The good news is that there are a whole multitude of student loan options that don’t require that you provide a cosigner pretty-much no matter what, and these loans are not at all dependent on your credit and income.

The kind of funding I’m talking about here are most often referred to as federal student loans, and they can be the key to obtaining the financing you need if you cannot get approved for any private student loans as a result of your bad credit history and low income. Federal student loans are based off of your financial need, academic performance, and other kinds of personal factors besides your credit and income, and can thus be approved without the need of a credit check, or the supplying of a cosigner. These loans are actually the best types of student loans to take out because of the low interest rates and flexible repayment terms that they give their borrowers. If you have been looking for student loans no cosigner needed or required then you should always look to federal loans first before attempting to get a private student loan because of the cost savings, the overall ease of applying, and the leniency you will have when it comes time to payback these variety of loans.

So you are now probably wondering how you should go about applying for these federal loans. In reality the application process is very simple, and to apply for these student loans with no cosigner you simply need to fill out a FAFSA application form at some point during wintertime. The FAFSA application is the universal application for financial aid from the government, and by filling it out correctly and sending it in on time you can almost guarantee your eligibility for some of the best federal student loans that are available. You can fill out the application either online, or send it in via mail, and as long as you fill it out completely and by the appropriate deadlines you should hear a response back from your college at some point during the springtime.

Your college should send you an award letter with all of the federal student loans that you may have qualified for, and among these will most likely be Stafford and Perkins federal college loans. These are the most common types of federal loans, and once you are approved you simply need to send in the form to your college that will confirm your acceptance of such aid, and you should not have to provide a cosigner or submit to a credit check at any point throughout this entire process. These loans are in fact bad credit student loans no cosigner in the regard that they aren’t reliant on your credit history and your ability to produce a cosigner, and because of this you shouldn’t worry about having no credit if you’re a college student, or if your parents cannot cosign for whatever reason.