I started a new thread with this before I saw this thread. So, here's what I posted about options when you go over your school's COA. I figure that there are a number of options depending on your situation:
Certification of Expenses:
Contact your school's financial aid office and see how they can help. While some schools seem willing to slightly raise your COA, others will not. If your school can't adjust your COA, see if they'll certify some expenses. From what I've heard from one school's financial aid office, they'll certify expenses like car loan payments, car insurance, non-reimbursed medical expenses, med school application expenses, etc. You'll have to provide them with receipts to justify these expenses. They said that if the expenses are certified, that you can get lower interest rates than for a private loan. Basically, (from what I've learned) the school would certify those approved expenses to your current loan provider (your grad plus lender?) and get you the lower rate and loan.
Private educational loan:
Now, from my investigations so far, for a private educational loan (this info is pursuant to a call to Chase), everything will depend on your credit rating. The interest rate could be anywhere from 6.12-12.6% and there may be origination fees of 0-4% as well. All payments may be deferred while in school. You do not need anyone to cosign unless you have bad credit.
Some private educational lenders I've seen bandied about are:
Chase
Edamerica
My Rich Uncle
Wells Fargo
One thing to consider is which private lender you can use that also does fed/plus loans, so that you can use just one lender for everything. I'm not sure about the others, but I know that Chase and Edamerica let you do everything through them.
Regular (non-educational) private loan:
For a regular private loan, the interest rate (and whether you will even qualify for a private loan) will depend entirely on your credit, and since most (if not all) of us won't have a job for the next four years, having a family member with income cosign will likely be necessary. Unlike the educational loan above, payments are not deferred.
Home Equity Line of Credit:
I'm an amateur with this stuff, but from what I've learned about home equity lines of credit, good credit is again required (cosign might be necessary), and you would get a line of credit on which you would draw down on as needed, so it wouldn't impact your EFC for subsequent years (i.e., you wouldn't have an excess of cash sitting in an account somewhere). Here's what I got from someone at Chase about this:
The home equity line could be drawn as needed, and the rate is Prime less 1/2 of 1%. The Prime Rate is currently 5.25%. There is the risk of the Prime rate rising in addition to the risk of adding debt to your home. There is the possibility of locking in rates on the Home Equity Line as you draw portions, but there is a significant premium to do this. A co-signer on the home equity line may be needed; a cosigner would need to provide a personal financial statement and two years' tax returns.
Seems like it'd be risky to use a home equity line of credit since the rate is so variable. As for "locking" the rate in, I haven't looked into yet what a "significant premium" means exactly. And I'm sure things vary by lender.
Refinance an Existing Mortgage:
If you put a decent chunk of change down on your place or it's appreciated since you purchased it, another possibility is refinancing and/or getting a larger mortgage. My concern with that is that the amount you'll get out of this transaction would count against you for purposes of EFC in subsequent years. Then you'd have to cover even more privately. I'm not sure where the balance would be where you could "take out" enough but not impact your EFC so much that you wouldn't qualify for sub/unsub/plus loans. And of course, you'd have to make even higher mortgage payments throughout school.
Cash
Similarly, if you've been able to save some money, holding that money in a checking account or somewhere you could get to it easily would impact your EFC and you'd need to cover even more yourself. Also, if you're only able to cover a year or two of extraneous expenses, should there be a concern about what the private lending market will look like in a year or two? Perhaps putting it off is a bad idea and it'd be better to put that cash into your home and refinance as detailed above?
My head is spinning. Anyone else want to discuss the pros and cons of some of the above? Argh.