An investment in your education is one of the best ways to spend your money. However, depending on what school you go to, this can be one really expensive investment and unless you have rich parents or a full scholarship, chances are, you will probably have to take out a loan. This can be something that is a must if you really want to get school over with but how do you qualify for a loan if you don’t have a job? Getting student loans for the unemployed can involve a couple of things.
One thing you can do if your family has low income is apply for low-income type grants. You can check your financial aid office to see what the qualifications are since they vary from state to state. There are the typical state loans that you can apply for as well such. There will be some cases where students might exhaust all of the loans they can get from the state in which case, they might have to take out a private loan. This can be difficult to qualify for if you don’t have a job and at the same time happen to have bad credit. Getting unemployed bad credit loans is tough since you don’t have income and you have bad credit at the same time. Although you can defer your payments, if you end up with a high interest rate, the loan could end up following you for quite a while.
What you can do in this situation is to get someone such as your parents to co-sign for you. You will basically be using their credit and income status to help you qualify. A student loan is often something that is unavoidable and if you do take one out, make sure once you finish school, you focus on paying it off. If the loan is large enough, even with a 5% interest, it can take a while to pay off.
If you have bad credit a bank can’t trust you based on past performance that their large loan will be safe on its own. Therefore the bad credit home loans borrower needs to find alternative methods of proving to a lender that their money is covered and that they will receive all of their expected profits. There are a few simple concepts that if you understand will make it easier to work things from the bank’s point of view.
Loan To Value Risk
When you borrow the full amount of the home without putting any real money down your loan to value equals 1. If a bank was to foreclose on you they would be able to sell the house for what they loaned you. There is only one problem with that. There are a lot of fees associated with foreclosures, evictions, house auctions, realtor fees, loaning fees, money sitting idle, and on and on. Essentially if they break even on the sale they have lost serious money. If you have bad credit the best way to get a mortgage is to put more money down. That way the bank knows they could take the house and still earn a profit. Plus, it shows you know how to earn and save money.
Debt to Income Ratios
The banks have done extensive studies on how much money as a percentage of their personal income a family can spend on housing before they feel so pressured by the payment they cave and short sell or walk away from a house. This number is about 28% of gross income or 38% of the money they have available each month after bills are paid. If you can show the bank that you have lower than normal bills or you make much more money each month than the normal person does compared to the house they want to buy, then you can still find a mortgage with bad credit.
When I first started to plan for college I knew that I would have to apply for a good amount of student loans so that I could afford the price of tuition, and the associated costs of living. This was mostly due to the fact that I didn’t really have any unique athletic, or academic talents that would allow me to get a scholarship, and because my parents didn’t have the cash to put towards my education. I ended up concluding that I would have to turn to an exorbitant amount of private student loan funding in combination with any aid I got from the government to pay for school. This plan of turning to private loans first before any federal aid I though was a smart idea, boy was I wrong!
My main issue revolved around my inability to get approved for a private student loan at all due to my bad credit. The only way around my bad credit was getting my parents to cosign, and because they weren’t willing to do so, I couldn’t get approved for any private loan funding. This worried me quite a bit, and I started to contemplate my ability to attend college at all. I intended on going to an expensive private university that cost over forty thousand dollars per year, and immediately knew that without the aid that would be provided via a private student loan funding I would not be able to attend any kind of university that cost that much.
After I had my panic attack, I gathered myself and began to regain focus. I reassessed my plans, and decided that it would be best to go to one of my backup schools, which would cost much less than the private university I was planning to attend. I would commute instead of living on-campus, and I would try and budget as closely as possible.
My primary issue was still getting the funding I would need to pay for my full tuition costs. In January I filled out a FAFSA application, to make myself eligible to receive federal aid, and I received my award letter in June. To my surprise, federal student loans are non credit based student loans that aren’t based off of your credit like private loans are. Because I was living in-state, and commuting, the federal student loans I received would easily pay for the costs of attending my backup school of choice. The point I tried to get across with this story is that you should never discount the kind of funding you can receive from federal, non credit based student loans, as these loans came to my rescue when I was in my darkest hour.
Well the politicians are at it again. This time they’re parading money out in front of us (the stimulus bills) and saying that they’re going to help everyone, especially those needing financial aid to attend college. They say they’re worried about student loan increases, yet all they do is pay it lip service and through more taxpayer money at it.
You would think that the Politicians could figure out that if they helped students by curbing the actual cost of College, then they wouldn’t have to hold us hostage with student loans! Geez people, just help limit the increase in College itself and then you won’t have to increase spending!
But since common sense is in short demand in Washington, here are some tips to help you cut your cost so Washington doesn’t have to cut theirs. This will help you offset some of the upcoming student loan increases.
First, get rid of your credit card. When money is hard to find, too many of you College students want to run up your credit card. It’s not a good idea. Living without credit is entirely doable and once you get the hang of a cash only lifestyle, it’s really satisfying to know credit card companies don’t have you over a barrel.
Limit your lifestyle. Yeah, I said limit your lifestyle. There’s no need for you to go to Daytona Beach or the Hamptons for spring break. While you’re at it, learn to cook inside the dorm. You don’t need a Chef’s kitchen to fix simple, healthy meals. Stop eating out so much and you’ll soon find out that you have a lot more money available.
Get a job. Yeah, you read right. I know you think you don’t have time to get a job and go to school at the same time, but really, a few less kegger parties and you’ll have plenty of time to pick up a part time job and help pay your way through college. This little student loan advice alone will help you offset any increase that comes down the pipe.
When looking at starting your education in a college or university, one of the first things that comes to mind is the debt that you are about to accumulate. The great part for you as a student is that the government reconigizes that you need all the help you can get and can offer you a Federal Student Loan. If you must go into debt, this is the best kind to be in.
Because the government knows what your needs are and realizes that colleges and universities are raising tuition prices almost every semester, they also understand your needs. We are all encouraged to further our education and get the most out of it that we can, but at the same time it can be so expensive that for many people it is not even an option.
Though the best advice to give would be to try not to get any debt. Summers are still a good time to work hard and earn money to be spent during the school year. If you can really budget your money you may be able to earn summer money to provide during your school year. But if that really isn´t an option for you, then student loans may just be your best bet.
If you feel like you need to get some sort of loan, the best kind out there are those federal student loans. These are designed for you and they even give you a 6 month period after graduating to find that good, new job that will help you to pay for payments. The interest is lower then any other type of loan that you are going to find and they are a great way to build good credit.
If you need a bad credit private school loan, have a look at this article.
Understanding Your Loans | admin, 24 Feb 10 | 
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