Hi everybody. I’ve been in the US for the last 5 years (private high school) and It’s my senior year now, I don’t really have appealing SAT scores but I’m still taking them (1550-1700 range). Most of the colleges I’m applying to provide some kind of financial aid but I’m still gonna have to pay over 20k+ (obviously more if I pay housing). However, apparently my parents won’t be able to pay the full tuition and they may afford only 10k per year. They have lots of friends here so I was thinking of applying for a private loan because I’m not eligible for a federal one. I was wondering if any one of you guys have ever taken out a private loan especially if you’re an international, can you please let me know about the possibility of receiving a private loan? Is there any chance for me to not get a student loan? Details?
I don’t think I can go back to my country after this point because I don’t know the education system and I’m not even sure If I can handle classes in a different language other than English. Thanks a lot, I’ve been freaking out about this lately.
Look at the threads pinned at the top of the forum. Inside there are lower cost options in a variety of states, also very carefully read all the colleges in the automatic scholarships thread. Private loans have to begin payment right away, are your parent friends going to make payment for you or will your parent? How will the parent repay all that? Friends aren’t usually friends after you ask them to sign for large amounts of money they may end up having to pay themselves. It might be smarter to see if you can live with one of these friends and attend a CC then transfer to a 4 year, or attend a low cost 4 year near their home.
One place to get private student loans is Sallie Mae and the website is pretty clear. You will be eligible if you have a US cosigner. But try to find lower cost colleges. https://www.salliemae.com/student-loans/
You would need a qualified U.S. Citizen cosigner for any private loans. In my opinion, this is a lot to ask friends to do. You are asking them to assume a huge amount of potential debt liability. To be honest, I wouldn’t cosign for my own kids for any college loans.
Have you considered attending a community college? Have you applied for permanent resident status? Do you plan to?
I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to ask your parents’ friends to cosign your student loans. They would be reponsible to pay those loans back if you weren’t able to…including if you were to die or become disabled someway.
I would be surprised if any of your parents’ friends would agree to cosigning your loans. That’s not something that non-family typically does. Likely, they have their own family’s concerns to worry about.
Thank you for your response. I’m still on F1 visa so there is no other way for me to get a green card other than applying for DV immigration lottery, which I already did. There is a low possibility of winning it but I guess It’s worth giving a try. And yes I’m actually considering to attend a CC or a low cost 4 year college. Getting a private student loan would still help me a lot though. Plus I didn’t know that I was supposed to start the repayment right away,If that’s the case, then my parents will be paying for it, not their friends.
@mtnkrt You are missing the point. If your family friends cosign these loans, they are putting their credit on the line. It doesn’t matter if your parents intend to do the repayment. What matters is that the loan is in someone else’s name.
If your parents can afford the monthly repayment, see if your colleges offer a monthly payment plan. Some do. If you borrowed $20,000, you could,divide it into ten $2000 a month payments.
Right…all it would take is some unfortunate event…a parent becoming unemployed for awhile, a parent becoming disabled, you becoming disabled or very sick, and suddenly the friends are stuck paying back the loan
Recently a parent was very concerned because they had cosigned a large loan for their child. Their chilld graduated with a very large loan. Then they had a scare when it was thought that the newish grad had cancer and wouldn’t be able to work to pay back the loans. Suddenly, the “great idea” of co-signing became potentially a serious problem.
Yeah I completely agree with you @mom2collegekids . It’s a huge risk to take but depending on the scholarship I get and the schools I apply to, getting a private loan can be the only option left. Or maybe I should try to aim a little higher on my test scores so I can qualify for a larger amount of merit based scholarship.
@Madison85 I actually pay over 20k for my school, It includes housing and boarding, but It’s all about the financial situation right now. Neither my parents nor I were expecting something like this to happen.
These disastrous things do happen. My mother’s husband cosigned his son’s loan. The son died of an accidental overdose. They are now mourning him and paying back his loans. It was a horrible situation. Merit or a less expensive school is a better option.
Are you here in a Visa? Once you finish high school, I don’t think you have a choice about going back. Your best option is for your parents to roll whatever they’re paying for your private school over to college.
You need to find out if the state that you’re in will give you instate rates to your local CC and start there. During that time, your family needs to work on getting a green card.
I actually did a little research @mom2collegekids and I’ve found this http://recreg.tcnj.edu/nj-dream-act/ . Since I’ve been in a NJ High school for 4 years now, technically I’m eligible?? I didn’t know this but I’m not sure if the same thing applies to international students so I emailed my counselor right away to find out. And my parents already applied for greencard but we’re not sure if we can get it, If not, we can still apply next year.
@austinmshauri - Students on F1 visas can transfer that visa to a different institution under certain circumstances. Lots of international students do just that every year. However, there are restrictions on the amount of time that can pass between leaving the first place of studies for another one, so mtnkrt needs to find out what his/her options are, and pay close attention to time limits.