New help getting a student loan.

[Chena83]

I am in my second year of school to beome an Occupational Therapist. I was just informed that I am close to the limt of taking out loans. From my understand I need to buggy down on trying to get more scholarships and personal loans. My Transunion gredit score is 645, and i think the other two were 635 and  630, the last time I check a month ago. I have 2 credit cards, one $648 with a limit of $700 andthe other balance id $499 with a limit of $500. We have a morgage that we have been paying on time each month. I have about $1800 in medical collection.

What do you sugget I do to make sure my credit is good enough to get a personal loan becaue I have 2 more year of school that I need to have funded? Which bank would you suggest I go with to get my student loans through?

Thanks for you help,

Chena'

[laz98]

You need to pay off your credit cards ASAP, & keep the balances low.  Right now it looks like you're maxed out, & no one is going to want to lend you money if you are carrying balances like that.

Did you get your TU & EQ credit scores here?

[Chena83]

No I think I got them somewhere else. Is that the main thing that I need to do is pay off those credit cards?

[laz98]

---

@Chena83 wrote:

No I think I got them somewhere else. Is that the main thing that I need to do is pay off those credit cards?

---

They may not be accurate scores then.  Your real scores may be higher OR lower.

The best thing you can do for your scores is pay off your cards, yes.  I can't say how much your score will increase, but it's the easiest thing to do to raise your scores. 

[GST2008]

You should talk with your financial aide department at the school about getting the Graduate Plus loan.  The Plus loans allow you to go over the traditional amount offered through direct loans.  When I was attaining my doctorate, I reached the cap. on the Stafford loans but was able to get additional federal money through the Graduate Plus loans, which are another form of federal direct loans.  The financial aide department at my school just sent me the necessary paperwork and there was no credit check or anything else.  When I graduated, I was able to consolidated them with my Stafford loans into a fed. direct consolidated loan with no problem.

[diva0969]

I just wanted to add that there IS a credit check for Graduate Plus loans and you need to have fairly decent credit to get one.  No tax liens or judgements within the past five years and no "serious" deliqencies.  Now, I'm not sure what "serious" means, but you can log on to the federal direct loans site and get more information.  I'm not sure if they were doing credit checks in the past, but they are surely doing them now.  

I have a tax lien that recently reported even though it's from 2003, (I'll be paying off soon, it's my only baddy from a car I've since paid off),  and I was denied the Grad Plus loan for this reason only.