With education costs continuing to rise from one year to the next it is becoming harder to source the funds necessary for college and more and more students spend more time thinking about raising the money needed than they do concentrating on their studies. If this was not bad enough in itself all too many students find that once they have left college they are saddled with so much debt that it simply drags them down and will take many years to repay. If this seems to be a grim picture then for a lot of students the problem of financing their education is increased by the need to raise the funds needed without having a cosigner for their loans.

Nowadays college funding is not merely a matter of looking to a single source of finance for most students but is a matter of creating a portfolio of funds from various different sources.

The first port of call for every student should be to look for grants and scholarships. A lot of students overlook this source of essentially free money altogether and yet it is surprising just how many grants and scholarships are on offer nowadays. In many cases of course the amounts of money in question are relatively small but nonetheless can be extremely useful as one part of your total funding plan.

The next source of funding ought to be federal loan funding through schemes such as Stafford and Perkins loans which are offered as both subsidized and unsubsidized loans. Perkins loans particularly useful because of their relatively low rate of interest but are also the most difficult loans to obtain and require students to demonstrate financial need.

Alas at this point although you will have started to create your portfolio it is unlikely that it will give you enough funds and you will have to begin casting your net wider and will have two paths to follow.

If you are able to obtain the assistance and support of a parent or guardian then they may apply for a federal student PLUS loan to cover the difference between the money which you have been able to get yourself and the actual cost of attending college. Student PLUS loans are conditional upon the parent or guardian having a reasonable credit history but the requirements are less strict than those applied by a private lender.

If you have not got a parent or guardian to whom you can turn or decide to go it alone then you will have to seek a loan from a private lender and precisely how easy that will be will depend very much on your own credit history. In the majority of cases lenders will be happy to offer you a loan if you have a good credit history and will require you to have a cosigner if you have no credit history against which they can make their lending decision or have a poor credit history. Nonetheless, with a growing number of people with a poor or bad credit history nowadays there is also a rising number of lenders who are prepared to offer loans without the need for a cosigner so it is merely a matter of shopping around.

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