How to Get a Student Loan Without Your Parents’ Support

Conventional wisdom has it that getting a student loan is a family affair involving students and their parents. But instead, it is a tag-team effort to find the education financing needed to get a newly-minted college student on campus with enough funding to cover college costs.

The truth is, no law says a student and parent need to both be involved in borrowing money for college, especially when it comes to federal student loans. However, when you think about the sweet spot families should be aiming for with student loans, it makes sense that parents may want to be involved.

• Students need the money to pay for their college or university degree and get on with the process of preparing for the real world.
• Parents want their children to get the financial aid they need to go to college, but ideally, like their names off the loan and no obligations to repay that debt.

There are several ways college students can get student loans without a parent borrower or cosigner. These include federal student loans, increasing federal student loan limits by qualifying as an independent student, getting a private student loan with someone other than the parent as a cosigner, and tuition installment plans.

Read on to learn how to get student loans without your parents’ support.

Focus on Free Money First

It’s always best to exhaust any free financial aid options before turning to a student loan.

Free money includes grants and scholarships, tuition waivers, and gifts from family members like grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Consider tuition installment plans, which let you pay the college bills in monthly installments over the academic term for a small up-front fee.

Perhaps friends and family might be willing to provide a no-interest loan.

Four Action Steps to Get a Student Loan Without a Parent

Although it can be difficult to get a student loan without your parents’ information or credit history to support your application, it is possible, at least for some people. You can get student loans without parents if you’re classified as an independent student, or, in some cases, a dependent student.

To get a loan for college without your parents’ help, use the right strategies to get a parent-free loan:

1. Fill out the FAFSA form

The one step in the “no-parent” student loan that requires a parent’s involvement is the FAFSA form. The FAFSA is a prerequisite for a student to get a federal student loan. If the student is a dependent, parental information is required on the form. Signing the FAFSA does not obligate the parent to borrow or repay their child’s federal student loans.

2. Explore going independent with your college loan

Uncle Sam, via the U.S. Department of Education, does offer various loopholes to move your “dependent” status to an “independent” status.

Students can’t declare themselves independent, even if they live independently and are financially self-sufficient.

There are very few options for becoming independent that are under the student’s control. Students who are married, have children or legal dependents other than a spouse, serve on active duty with the U.S. Armed Forces or are in graduate school may be considered independent for financial aid purposes. There are also some other criteria that may be used to determine dependency status. Otherwise, the student will have to wait until they turn age 24 and are automatically considered independent.

If the student is not deemed independent according to these criteria, they may be able ask the school’s financial aid office for a dependency override in unusual circumstances. But, dependency overrides are very rare and involve extreme cases, such as an abusive household and abandonment.

The college financial aid administrator will not provide a dependency override merely because the parents are unwilling to complete the FAFSA or verification or because the parents are unwilling to pay for college.

Suppose parents can’t or won’t provide their financial information and have cut off all financial support to the student for whatever reason. In that case, the student may qualify for just unsubsidized student loans.

3. Check out tuition installment plans

The vast majority of U.S. colleges and universities offer tuition installment plans that can help you take a bite-sized approach to paying down tuition costs – and curb the need for any student loan. If you’ve saved up enough money, paying your tuition via monthly installments buys you some time to so you don’t need to make that huge upfront, lump-sum payment.

Even if you steer $2,500 of your savings toward $10,000 worth of college tuition costs for a semester, that’s $2,500 less than you’ll need to borrow in a student loan scenario. So ask your bursar’s office about signing up for a tuition payment plan.

Tuition installment plans are also a good option if the student is trying to work their way through college.

4. Check your FAFSA Submission Summary

Once the FAFSA form is complete, the student and their family will get a FAFSA Submission Summary in a few days or, more likely, in a few weeks. On that form is all the data recorded on the form by students and parents.

When you get your FAFSA Submission Summary, check it thoroughly for accuracy. The information included is used to calculate the amount of money available in financial aid for the student. If the amount isn’t enough for your college costs, the student can apply for federal student loans (as long as they remain under the loan maximum cap) without getting their parents involved.

Hit the Sweet Spot with a Parentless Federal Student Loan

A “parentless” student loan is easier to achieve than you might think when focusing on public and not private student loans.

Most U.S. college students are eligible for Federal Direct Loans (also known as “Stafford Loans”), which do not depend on the applicant’s credit history and do not require a cosigner. The applicant does need to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which usually requires the parent’s financial information if the student is a dependent student, but this does not obligate the parents to borrow or to cosign the loans.

“Dependent Versus Independent” Student Loan Options

Whether the student is considered a dependent or independent student on the FAFSA affects federal student loan limits.

If the student is independent, parental information is not required on the FAFSA, and the loan limits on the Federal Direct Loans are higher.

How high? This table shows the loan limits based on dependency status as well as Direct subsidized and unsubsidized loan amounts:

As shown in the table, independent undergraduate students get an additional $4,000 per year in annual loan limits during the first and second years and $5,000 per year during the third and subsequent years.

Graduate students and students in medical school are automatically considered independent students.

In addition, the aggregate loan limits for independent undergraduate students are $57,500, compared with $31,000 for dependent undergraduate students. Graduate students can borrow up to $138,500 ($224,000 for medical school students), including undergraduate student loans.

Graduate students may also be eligible for the Federal Grad PLUS loan, which depends on the borrower’s credit history but does not require a cosigner. However, if the graduate student has an adverse credit history, they may still get a Grad PLUS loan with an endorser, which is like a cosigner.

There is no shortage of caveats in classifying a college student as dependent or independent when qualifying for student loans without parental help.

Uncle Sam considers you an independent college student if you’re 24 years old (or older) as of December 31 of the financial aid award year. Therefore, you’d qualify for higher loan amounts than a dependent college student.

Additionally, suppose a college student’s parents have both passed on. If the student is a military veteran or if the student is married or has dependents of their own, that student (even if they are an undergraduate) is deemed independent.

Special circumstances may apply, as well. For example, suppose a student’s parents can’t qualify for a Federal Parent PLUS loan because they have bad credit or other financial hardship issues. In that case, the student can qualify for the same loan limits as independent students on their Federal Direct loans.

A Word on Private Student Loans

You can get a private student loan without a parent, as well, but there’s a pretty big catch.

Private student loans generally require a creditworthy cosigner, but the cosigner does not need to be your parents. Someone else with a good or excellent credit score can cosign the loan. However, convincing a non-parent to co-sign a private student loan is hard. If you have a mentor, grandparent, or trusted friend with sterling credit who will cosign your loan, you may be able to qualify for a private student loan without getting your parents involved.

A few private lenders and products, like Ascent’s Non-Cosigned Outcomes-Based Loan, use criteria other than credit and income, such as GPA or major, to establish eligibility.

Keep in mind that private loans do not offer the same repayment options and benefits as federal loans. These include income-driven repayment plans, a chance for subsidized loans, opportunities for deferment or forbearance if you lose your job, the potential for student loan forgiveness, and much more. In addition, private student loans may have higher interest rates than federal student loans, so be sure to do your research.

The Parental View

For parents, there is no obligation to repay a college loan taken out by their student that they didn’t cosign or apply for themselves.

Mom and dad can still contribute to their child’s college education in myriad ways, such as tax-free gifts, 529 college savings plans, or the American Opportunity Tax Credit, for example. Moreover, they’re free and clear of any legal obligation to repay student-only federal or private loans with these options.

That might be the ideal scenario for parents who want to help out with a child’s college costs – but only on a limited basis where they call the shots.

Alternative Funding Options 

If you can’t get a student loan on your own, try these alternative funding options:

• Scholarships. There are a range of nonprofits, professional organizations, and businesses that offer scholarships based on academic merit, financial need, co-curricular talents, and other factors.
• Grants. Likewise, there are a range of federal, state, and private grants available, as well as those offered by colleges and nonprofits.
• Emergency student loans. If you need a short-term loan to cover an emergency situation, your school may be able to help with an emergency student loan.

At Savingforcollege.com, our goal is to help you make smart decisions about saving and paying for education. Some of the products featured in this article are from partners from whom we receive compensation, but this doesn’t influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own, not those of any bank, investment manager, or student lender.