Is It Realistic To Get Student Loans Without A Cosigner?
One of the biggest misconceptions about getting financial aid to pay for college is whether you can get a private student loan when you have bad credit, or no credit.
The answer is that you can, but there is a significant catch involved.
If want to get a private student loan when you have bad credit you are going to need to produce a cosigner or else you are going to find it virtually impossible to get approved by most private lenders.
Getting private student loans without a cosigner isn’t really a possibility anymore ever since the economy tanked and the credit-crunch took effect a few years ago, as the lenders that were offering such loans went out of business once this happened to the economy.
A Feasible Attempt
To get a private student loan without a cosigner you are going to have to either improve your credit situation, or convince the private lender that you can be trusted despite your lack of a credit history.
Unless you have some kind of Trump card waiting up your sleeve you can almost be guaranteed that you won’t be able to do this.
Some people may have a considerable amount of cash reserves or other type of asset waiting in the wings to show a private lender, and for these people there may be a chance at getting approved even though they have bad credit.
For the majority of the population however this isn’t really a plausible option, and because of this looking for bad credit private student loans without a cosigner isn’t going to be a real alternative when this is your only feasible way of getting approved.
Federal Student Loans
You shouldn’t lose all hope though if you cannot obtain a private student loan due to your bad credit history.
This is because there are still student loans in existence that don’t require that you have good credit or a cosigner, and while they aren’t private student loans, they can still provide a large proportion of the financing you need so that you can pay for college.
The loans I’m talking about here are federal student loans, as they are non credit based student loans that typically do not require that you provide a cosigner or submit to a credit check.
This is because they are based off of your financial need for aid, along with some other miscellaneous personal factors instead of your credit.
This means that you can get these loans without much of a hassle even though you do not have a substantial credit history and no cosigner.
Completing the FAFSA
The key to getting approved for these types of no cosigner student loans is to fill out the universal application for federal student aid, commonly referred to as the FAFSA.
The FAFSA application is the only application that you need to complete if you want to make yourself eligible for federal aid, and once you are ready to apply you can either send in the form via conventional mail, or complete the online version.
Financial Aid Award Letter
Once you have sent it in you can expect to hear back from your college within about three to four months at some point during the Spring or Summer.
Your school will send you an award letter with all of the federal loans that you may have qualified for, and within this letter could be both Stafford and Perkins loans.
These are two of the most popular kinds of federal loans, and they come with very low interest rates and flexible repayment terms.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that you can get a bad credit student loan without a cosigner if you look to federal loans first before private loans, and if you cannot come up with a cosigner then you should probably refrain from even applying for private loans.
Private student loans should always be looked to as a supplementary kind of financial aid anyways due to their higher interest rates and overall cost, so if you are not sure about getting federal loans you shouldn’t be because they are a better loan to get when compared to the majority of private college loans that are out there.
