Best private student loans?

Paying for College
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<p>What's the best way to go if you don't qualify for aid and your parents can't help you pay for college? In fact I just found out that I don't even know if my mom will be willing to cosign.
I was wondering if I could get any advice on what's the best way to go as far as private or personal loans go. How long does it take the school to get those loans? What are your experiences with them?</p>

<p>Also, I could possibly apply for the unsubsidized stafford loan, which I believe has a borrowing limit of $2000 per year. Is it a good idea to borrow from multiple places, like a federal and private/personal loan or just stick with one?</p>

<p>Any help or advice would be really, really appreciated!!!!!!!!</p>

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<p>It is not uncommon to borrow from a few different sources. Unsub Staffords are not the best loans (interest acrues immediately) but carefully thought out Unsubs are okay to take out.</p>

<p>You will not qualify for non-Federal loans. Private loans just are not out there for 18 year olds with little-to-zero credit history, work history, or collateral. Think about it–banks want to know they will get their money back with interest and the applicant is wanting to spend the next 4+ years going to college and working part-time at student wages. Not a good risk. Thus the need for a co-signer.</p>

<p>Think of it another way. At best, if you wanted to take out a loan for a car, how much do you think you’d qualify for? And at least then the bank can repossess your car (collateral). Many 18 year olds are turned down just for private car loans.</p>

<p>So, what I hope you can really hear is that there are no private/personal loans available to you. You need to go through Staffords (federal program), enlist your mother to get more involved, or look into other ways to fund your college such as military service, working a few years first, community college while living at home, etc.</p>

<p>So - that is the generic advice. If you want more specific advice you would need to list your stats</p>

<p>EFC
State you live in
Your HS stats (GPA, SAT)
Your target schools
What your parents realistically will contribute
etc</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

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<p>What is your situation?</p>

<p>Are you an incoming freshman?</p>

<p>The you can borrow up to $5500 for Stafford unsub + sub. If you need that much, do this first.</p>

<p>How much do you need for college? If your mom won’t co-sign then your options are very limited since banks don’t lend large amounts to students without income/assets.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that you’ll have this problem for the rest of your college years. </p>

<p>How much money do you need?</p>

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<p>Thanks for offering to help!</p>

<p>More info:</p>

<p>I’m a sophomore transferring to a public state school. I actually do have 2 years of work history, and I do have a few thousand in a student savings account that my parents started a long time ago. Will that help in qualifying me for a loan? That money’s enough to maybe pay for one semester, but I don’t want to use it all at once.</p>

<p>Our EFC is actually more than the cost of attendance, but my parents are in an incredible amount of debt plus we have all our other expenses to pay for. So they’re not planning to help out at all, as far as I know. Their help has been this student savings account, but they won’t be contributing anymore. Unless they have some secret chamber of gold somewhere :)</p>

<p>I think my parents are worried that their credit won’t be good enough to get me a loan even if they did try to co-sign. I’ll only qualify for the unsubsidized stafford loan, and isn’t that only $2000 a year?? And plus- is this something that the FAFSA would tell you you’re qualified for? Or can you apply on your own?</p>

<p>I need about $13K per year. HOPEFULLY I’ll be able to find a job at some point again during school that can contribute to that, but I’ve definitely learned this year that you can’t always assume that you’ll be able to find a job- no matter how “small” that job is!!</p>

<p>My nightmare is definitely that I’ll have to go through this for three more semesters :frowning: I’m not incredibly, incredibly worried about paying my loans back- I just hope I can actually find someone who will give me a loan! I know my parents discussed this today, but I don’t know what came out of that. </p>

<p>I’ve heard of co-sign release programs where you can release your co-signer after a certain amount of payments. Has anyone heard good things about this?</p>

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<p>THere are usually state schools around where you can live at home, commute and they are usually affordable. That might be the best option for you. If your parents are not able to cosign for you, or really take out a PLUS for you and trust you to repay it, then who would?</p>

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<p>Actually I can’t do that either. The cost of the out of state school is a bargain- they give a tuition discount so it’s the same as going to in-state school here would be. And I would need a loan for that too. Plus finding a job has been impossible so I wouldn’t be able to afford any commute. Plus, frankly, the schools around here that are affordable aren’t that great and don’t have the best programs. Or any program for my major. There’s a reason I decided that I would be getting a better quality education elsewhere.</p>

<p>I really don’t know who else will. I’ll just have to talk and beg my parents for help. My mom keeps claiming my brother got a loan with no problem without having her co-sign his freshmen year (even with no job and no credit). Unless he maybe got a stafford loan I don’t really see how that’s possible? But that’s the argument she keeps giving me. I might be able to turn to my grandparents for help. I actually joked about this earlier, but I would really, really hate to do this because they’ve already helped me out so much and I would feel terrible still accepting more from them.</p>

<p>I just hate that I have to face the consequences of all this bad debt. I feel like I made all the smart choices- went to a 2-year school first that cost pretty much nothing, worked for 2 years, and chose to go to a public school with a relatively inexpensive cost compared to some of the more popular schools that so many people fight to get into. Now I’m having to struggle to come up with this money…</p>

<p>Sorry to complain and ramble, but no one has been listening at all here at home. I know there are many other people in this kind of situation that have also worked super hard to get into the schools that we’ve gotten into. It doesn’t help that my parents don’t even like talking about it, let alone actually helping me do anything. I’m hoping that it’s just not as bad as a situation as it seems. I’m thinking if people actually started to offer to help me and started actually doing something and tried to work things out that we could come up with something!!</p>

<p>Would money in a student savings account count as an “asset” that could help with qualifying for a loan? It’s like having income- in fact I think I’ve had to count some of it as income on taxes. I don’t know what I have that would count as good credit except for a couple of store credit cards. But I’m assuming that wouldn’t count, lol.</p>

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<p>*My mom keeps claiming my brother got a loan with no problem without having her co-sign his freshmen year (even with no job and no credit). Unless he maybe got a stafford loan I don’t really see how that’s possible? *</p>

<p>Your bro may have gotten the OLD Sallie Mae loan. Those are no longer available because of the bank crisis that happened in recent years. The new Sallie Mae loans are stricter.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I haven’t heard good things about Sallie Mae.</p>

<p>Well I finally got her to agree to talk about it, so wish me luck as we research! Sadly this did not come without a big fight about how I’ve been “pestering everyone about this” for so long. Excuse me for wanting to get things ready for the school I’m moving to in two weeks lol!!!</p>

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<p>Re: attend your instate school OP said “Actually I can’t do that either. The cost of the out of state school is a bargain- they give a tuition discount so it’s the same as going to in-state school here would be.”</p>

<p>Ah, but the bargain you are passing up is living at home for FREE!</p>

<p>You wrote: “and chose to go to a public school with a relatively inexpensive cost compared to some of the more popular schools that so many people fight to get into”</p>

<p>This makes no sense. If you don’t have money today, you also wouldn’t have been able to afford it two years ago. It is just irrelevant. My advice is to be wary anytime you get caught up in any “I deserve a better school because XYZ”. There are two steps to actually attending a school. 1) get accepted 2) be able to pay the bills. I have no doubt that you qualify for many schools (step 1), but it does not follow that you will have the money to pay for it (step 2). Both are critical!</p>

<p>You wrote: “I’m thinking if people actually started to offer to help me and started actually doing something and tried to work things out that we could come up with something!!”</p>

<p>What kind of help? Which people? </p>

<p>I think it would be great if your parents filled out a FAFSA so that you can get the best loans or other college-specific aid that you can. However, if your parents do not want to co-sign (and they probably should NOT if they are already in debt) then you need to look for affordable options.</p>

<p>This is not the pep-talk you want to hear, but it will be one of the more useful ones for your life so give it a try:</p>

<p>If you can get your degree from ANY college, assuming it is not a fake-college or run by some culturally offensive organization (think: Bob Jones University–it has a tarnished reputation nationwide regardless of its academics)… you can go on to have a great career and then think ahead for grad school if you still feel you want or need it. Grad school had advantages including larger financial aid possibilities, many paid grad programs, and of course, you can save up for several years and go to grad school and live off your nest egg.</p>

<p>You start school in 2 weeks…you have no co-signer…time to ask the grandparents, ask your parents once more, and if those don’t work, go on to create an affordable plan.</p>

<p>PS: Call your brother and ask what kind of loan/s he got his freshman year. No use in running around with half-information and speculation. I would be surprised if it was a private w/ no co-signer. So get the details. Also find out how many years ago this was, because the credit and banking landscape has changed <em>drastically</em> in the past 1.5 years.</p>

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<p>What I meant by help is getting my mom to sit down with me and look through loans and decide what would be best. We finally did, and now we’re finally on the same page :slight_smile: The nearest in-state public school is an hour away so I imagined it’d be a nightmare having to balance commuting an hour twice a day, classes, and working a job that I don’t even have. </p>

<p>Apparently my brother qualified for federal loans that I don’t qualify for now because, like you said, everything has drastically changed in many ways over the past couple of years. This is actually a little ironic because that means I also probably would have qualified for that aid had I chosen to go to a four-year school that year, lol. But that’s okay! I think I now have my mom maybe willing to co-sign if it comes to it, so that’s good :slight_smile: Things are looking a little better, which I knew they would- if my parents had been willing to sit down and talk this out. That’s what I meant by that rant ;)</p>

<p>The one thing I’m still confused on- I didn’t really get any kind of financial aid package from my school after the FAFSA. I know it says my need is supposedly negative (in the financial aid world where my parents can donate a ridiculous amount to college with no problems…), but it doesn’t say anything about the unsubsidized FAFSA loan. I thought that was something anyone could qualify for, regardless of need? But maybe since we can supposedly afford it all I don’t even get that option…</p>

<p>Thanks for listening to my ranting and frustration! I know you guys mean well!!</p>

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<p>This is actually a little ironic because that means I also probably would have qualified for that aid had I chosen to go to a four-year school that year</p>

<p>But it still wouldn’t exist for this next year. All that means is that you might have gotten that loan for freshman year. That loan wasn’t available last year…things had already changed. The former students were not “grandfathered in” and allowed to continue borrowing under the old system. Everyone is under the new system. </p>

<p>Everyone can get an unsub loan but maybe you need to ask for it since you didn’t have need. When you applied for FAFSA, did you check the box asking for loans? Call your school and ask what you need to do to get the unsub loan. Did you do the promissory note online?</p>

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<p>No, that’s the unsub limit if a student is also receiving the max in subsidized loans. The overall max for a freshman is $5500, so if you’re not being offered any subsidized Stafford loans you can take the full amount as unsubsidized.</p>

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<p>I do know students who commute an hour each way to complete college degrees. It happens a lot here in the Bay Area where I live. I knew a student who was a single mom with two kids, she had no car, and lived a bit out in the boonies–she took public bus system 2 hours EACH WAY (4 hours of commuting daily) during her first two years to attend community college. She also worked about 15 hours a week.</p>

<p>It can be insane, and I don’t envy anyone having to commute, but it happens more than you think and if you have no others options I promise you that you can make commuting work with some creativity. For example, you may make or have some friends and come up with an arrangement to sleep over on a couch or in a spare room 2 or 3 nights a week to avoid commuting mid-week for example. Or in exchange for some Saturday chores. Etc.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

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<p>I also know some people who commute an hour a day…</p>

<p>They often try to get all their classes on MWF to lessen their commuting time per week. They use T, Th for study, homework, job.</p>

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<p>Yeah, and there’s nothing worse about reaching your junior year before you run out of money, meaning that you have to graduate from a much cheaper (and probably less desirable school) and still be carrying around all the debt from the first school that didn’t give you a diploma.</p>

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<p>*there’s nothing worse about reaching your junior year before you run out of money, meaning that you have to graduate from a much cheaper (and probably less desirable school) and still be carrying around all the debt from the first school that didn’t give you a diploma. *</p>

<p>that’s what I think whenever I read these NYU threads. Kids taking out huge loans because they HAVE to go to their “dream school” NYU, but then they get about halfway thru and can’t borrow anymore. </p>

<p>I imagine that after they finally graduate from a lesser expensive school, and still have the albatross of their big NYU debt, they spend the next 10 years regretting their original choice of going to NYU first because that’s not where their degree is from, but their big debt is. </p>

<p>Very sad that their degree is not from the school that caused the debt.</p>