As the costs of education continue to rise each year it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain the funds necessary for a college education and a lot of students spend more time worrying about raising the money needed than they do working at their studies. As if this were not bad enough far too many students discover that once they have left college they are left with so much loan debt that it quite simply drags them down and will probably take years to repay. Now, if this paints a grim picture then for all too many students the problem of financing their education is increased by the requirement to raise the necessary funds without the availability of a cosigner to their loan applications.

College funding these days is not merely a matter of turning to a single source of finance for the majority of students but is a matter of creating a portfolio of funds from a range of different sources.

The first port of call for every student must be to look for scholarships and grants. A lot of students simply overlook this source of effectively free money altogether and yet you would be surprised at just how many scholarships and grants are on offer these days. In most cases of course the amounts of money in question are reasonably small but nonetheless can be very useful as a part of your total funding plan.

The next source of funding should be federal loan funding through schemes like Stafford and Perkins loans which are granted as both unsubsidized and subsidized loans. Perkins loans particularly useful because of their low rate of interest but are also the most difficult loans to obtain and require students to show particular financial hardship.

Alas at this point although you will have begun to create your portfolio it is unlikely that this will provide you with sufficient funds and you will need to start casting your net wider and here you will have two paths to follow.

If you are fortunate enough to have the help and support of either a parent or guardian then they can apply for a federal student PLUS loan to make up the shortfall between the funding that you have been able to find yourself and the total cost of attending college. Student PLUS loans are subject to your parent or guardian having a reasonable credit rating but the requirements are generally not as stringent as those which would be applied by private lenders.

If you do not have a parent or guardian to whom you can turn or simply decide to go it alone then you will need to seek a private loan and exactly how simple that will be will depend to a large extent on your personal credit history. In the majority of cases private lenders will be quite happy to grant you a loan as long as you have a good credit rating and will ask for a cosigner if you do not have a credit history on which they can base their lending decision or have a bad credit rating. In spite of this, with a growing number of people with a poor credit rating these days there is also a rising number of private lenders who are prepared to grant loans without the requirement for a cosigner so it is merely a matter of shopping around.

A poor credit loan with no requirement for a cosigner will naturally cost you more than a standard good credit loan but as long as you take your time and shop around carefully you will obtain a loan at a fair rather than exorbitant rate of interest.

TheStudentLoansCenter.com provides information on all aspects of college financing including student loans without cosigner support.