It means that neither you nor your parents really have the money. Your parents have other financial needs, such as saving for retirement, that will be compromised if they take on additional debt. Also, if you have younger siblings, you do not want to put your parents in the position of explaining to them why they took on debt for your college, but have no money and no more borrowing capacity for their college funding.
Note also that cosigned loans and parent loans also require checking parent creditworthiness and financial capability. You run the risk of them not being approved for a later year loan part way through college, forcing you to drop out. Also, there are some additional consumer risks (you and they may have to take out life and disability insurance on each other with a cosigned loan).
@ucbalumnus From what I understand, cosigned loans have to be taken out if I’m under 18, and the next few years I could take on the loans under my own name. However to do that, I would need to build up credit, is that right?
The government loans that you can get without a cosigner are limited to $5,500.
By yourself, you are unlikely to have both the credit history and income history to get additional loans without a cosigner.
I’m a sophomore in college. We ran some calculators, and my father received interest rates up to fifteen percent over five years (he didn’t do it!) He’s in his fourties and has excellent credit. Please avoid private loans at all costs.
Thanks everyone! So I visited RPI this weekend and needless to say, RPI isn’t for me. Now I’ll be choosing between NC State and Georgia Tech.
I’ll also be in the honors program at GT which may not have much “benefits” but I’ll get priority registration which is good