How to apply for student loans
Basis of most of the student loan application is the FAFSA.It is the one which screens any student whether they are eligible for the federal unsubsidized loans and subsidized student loan programs. Since you are student federal government will not ask you to provide your credit score just as in all other cases instead it will take a look on your individual financial need and history of previous student loan if any. These 2 are the eligibility criteria which decide whether you are a qualified student to receive a federal loan. Apart from the federal loans, information given in the FAFSA will be further used by your state and in-house loan programs to screen your eligibility criteria for some other loans.
Given below are step by step procedures which explains you how to apply for a loan online and get qualify for federal loans.
- Browse through the FAFSA official website. It is fafsa.ed.gov. One other similar website fafsa.com do exist in the cyberspace however it is not FAFSA official website. Find out the student loan application form from the official website. Fill out the required information & submit the filled application form. When you enter into the fafsa.com it will ask you to pay for the application form submission. Never pay for the FAFSA student loan application. It is free.
- There are two options are provided here. You can apply for a loan online or you can download the application form and take the print out later to fill the form by your hand.
- Enter the appropriate information in all sections. Proper direction is given on the website about how to apply for student loans online. You will be required to provide the information regarding your desired degree, personal information like address, DOB, etc, also enter the information asked on your felony conviction, citizenship and your income if any. If you are student who is younger than 24 you need to provide the details on your parent income too. So keep copies of their most recent income tax return. If you prefer to choose apply for a loan online then you can easily transfer the income tax data to your application using the IRS Data Retrieval tool.
- It’s time to choose your school. When you apply online you can select up to 10 schools to receive your online application of you are apply through print out copies then you can send up to 4 schools to receive your application. You can directly send your FAFSA student loan application directly to your school. They use the given information in the FAFSA form to qualify you for the loan program which is offered by your school and federal loans. When you apply for the schools online you can easily spot the school codes from the application. When you apply through print out copies, check out the FAFSA official website to know the exact school codes to apply for. You can also call to the number 1-800-4-FED-AID for obtaining your desired school codes.
- Finally sign the FAFSA application & submit. When you apply online you can sign the FAFSA application electronically along with the secret PIN before submitting. If you are going to submit the form offline you see the address in the first page. Sign your application and send it to the specified mail address.
- When it comes for FAFSA student loan processing for online mode it will take 3 to 5 business days and for offline applications it will take 7 to 10 days.