Quandary: need loan, but no cosigner (great credit, some resources)

[gsquared]

I'm considering a couple of different options for financing my graduate education. I was previously planning on taking out the entire amount necessary via federal loans, but both people I was intending on cosigning with recently said this would not be a possibility (health and work issues). Here are the basics of the situation:

I have good to excellent credit (high 700's)
All student loans from undergrad have been paid off
I have a few resources (car mainly) that I can put up as collateral
I am willing to take on higher rates from loans without a cosigner (I have read a few private companies will do this), but I would prefer for my loans to be federal

It doesn't seem like I have many options given that the federal loans I have looked into require a cosigner, but I would appreciate any thoughts of feedback.

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[DrMidlife]

Federal loans do not require a cosigner. If you're being told you need a cosigner, you're not looking at a federal loan.

Good resource: finaid.org

 

[gsquared]

Thanks for the heads up. If I can convince someone to cosign, it looks like I will get a better interest rate though?

 

[DrMidlife]

There are more things to consider than interest rate. I suggest that you would do best to use federal loans unless you're willing to do the hard work to study and understand what you need to care about, long term, with student debt. If you're on the way to med school or dental school, you have to care about how you're going to manage a quarter million debt burden.

 

[RangerBob]

I don't believe you can even get a cosigner on federal loans, but even if you can it doesn't change the rate--all the federal loans have fixed rates. Private loans will almost always have lower rates with a cosigner because that cosigner has an income and you won't. Sometimes you can't even get a private loan without a cosigner.

I agree with DrMidlife--use federal loans. Private loans should generally only be used as a backup for medical students. There aren't many situations I can think of where I'd actually recommend private loans over federal loans. The only one off the top of my head is if you KNOW you're going into a high-paying specialty at a for-profit institution--but no one can say any of that with certainty when they enter medical school.