Student Loans

[Dizzy's]

Alright BG with the fall semester of school coming up I am going to do something that I have never done and take out some student loans. Up to this point I have paid every cent of college outright, and as a result I was only taking 3 or so classes a semester and took longer to do my associates. However, I want to finish my bachelors in a timelier manner and get on with my life.

While I would like nothing more than to apply for federal loans, I am not yet a citizen so I am not eligible to apply for those. Which means that I will need to take out private loans, preferably one that would not require a cosigner. I do have a decent credit score, mid to high 700's, and it is backed by a car loan.

As some of you may have had to do this in the past, what is the best way to go about it? Are there some lenders that I should stay away from? Is this something that I should go to the financial aid office at my school with, or since it would be private loans do they have nothing to do with it? Any advice is much appreciated, since school starts in 3 weeks I hope to have this taken care if soon. If you have any questions for me let me know.

[Dizzy's]

I had sent an e-mail to the financial aid office at my school and they replied with the following "This would be a process you would complete on your own. We do not have a preferred lender list for private loans, and only certain places will issue a private loan to a non-resident. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any that will. You will need to call around to lenders to see if they will issue a loan. Our apologies for not being able to assist further. Thank you"

So not entirely unexpected. Darn this higher education thing being a pain in the rear end to obtain.

[theshun]

Where are you going? Go into the financial office and they should have a ton of material on where to look for loans. Look at grants and scholarships, too. You don't pay those back and every year, BILLIONS go unclaimed/unspent and some have odd criterions (like non-citizens only). Go to a bookstore and look in the school/college and business (two different areas) and they should have books you can jot down things to check out about specific loans/grants/scholarships.

[Dizzy's]

IU, I e-mailed the financial aid office yesterday and the response that I got was above.

[Melena]

You either got an idiot or a lazy piece of shit, or a mixture of both. Unfortunately a lot of scholarships and such you have to do the leg work yourself now it seems.

[Dizzy's]

Yeah, it seems that most schools are that way. It is one where I have the money to pay for this semester outright, however, I would have to drain my savings in order to do so. It is odd that my sister and i could get a loan for a brand new car, yet I cant get a loan under 4k for school.

[Prim]

A casual search yielded this result. Maybe it'll help. Looks like not having a co-signer will be the biggest hurdle to overcome.
http://www.iefa.org/international-student-loans

And here is a fairly extensive list of grants/scholarships that don't require US citizenship, if you want to try for any of those- http://www.metedu.org/rcac/scholarships_noncitizen.php

[Dizzy's]

Thanks for the links, I will check them out more thoroughly when I get home. I could see if my brother would co-sign for me, however, I am fairly sure that his low credit score would mess up my interest rate.

[Xelious]

Student Loans are a bad idea. I am currently in debt for 5 grand because of my student loans. You should use scholarships and a job to pay for your stuff.

[BlackEdition]

Having student loans is a horrible idea because you will go into debt. I recommend getting a job instead.

Student Loans are a bad idea. I am currently in debt for 5 grand because of my student loans. You should use scholarships and a job to pay for your stuff.

I agree, despite how mean it was to put that picture as your avatar. People are cruel.

[Gredival]

Check "Scholly" it's an aggregate scholarship search engine. It's not complete but it's useful for whittling down what you're eligible for.

You either got an idiot or a lazy piece of shit, or a mixture of both.

I find that financial aid workers are often the laziest because usually all they need to do is process government disbursed loans or follow the instructions of some private lender. The financial aid person who actively helps you find things doesn't exist anymore.

Student Loans are a bad idea. I am currently in debt for 5 grand because of my student loans. You should use scholarships and a job to pay for your stuff.

If you only have 5k debt for student loans chances are that you're either massively overqualified for your school and have a great scholarship, or you're at a crappy for-profit college taking some useless career training.

I bet on the latter.