With education costs continuing to rise year on year it is getting increasingly difficult to source the funds necessary for college and many students spend more time thinking about raising the money needed than they do concentrating on their studies. As if this were not bad enough all too many students find that once they have graduated they are saddled with so much loan 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 a college education is increased by a requirement to raise the necessary funds without having a cosigner for their loans.

These days college funding is not merely a matter of looking to one single source of finance for the majority of students but is a matter of building a portfolio of funds from a range of different sources.

The first action for all students should be to try to find scholarships and grants. A lot of students simply ignore this source of essentially free money altogether and yet you would be surprised at just how many scholarships and grants are available these days. In many instances of course the sums of money in question are relatively small but even so can be very useful as a part of your total funding plan.

The next port of call ought to be federal loans through schemes like Perkins and Stafford loans which are granted as both subsidized and unsubsidized loans. Perkins loans particularly useful because of their relatively low interest rate but are also the most difficult loans to obtain and need students to demonstrate financial hardship.

Alas at this point despite the fact that you will have begun to build your portfolio it is unlikely that this will provide you with enough funds and you will now have to begin casting your net wider and will have two roads to follow.

If you are fortunate enough to have the assistance 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 money you have been able to obtain 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 stringent than those which would be applied by private lenders.

If you do not have a parent or guardian you can turn to or simply decide to go it alone then you will have to get a private loan and exactly how simple this will be will depend to a large degree on your personal credit history. In most cases lenders will be happy to grant you a loan as long as your credit history is good 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 history. Nonetheless, with more and more people with a poor credit history nowadays there is also a growing number of lenders who are prepared to grant loans without the requirement for a cosigner and so it is merely a matter of shopping around.

A bad credit loan without a need for a cosigner will naturally be more expensive than a standard good credit loan although as long as you take your time and shop around carefully you will find a loan at a reasonable rather than exorbitant interest rate.