Many students want to pursue higher education at international universities. An abroad education loan assists aspirants who have the potential and charm to stand out from the crowd but are unable to resolve the funding issues required for an education abroad. A student loan to study abroad is for such students to give them the required financial assistance and help them achieve their dream.
There are certain necessary conditions, like eligibility criteria, documents required for filing your loan application, and a co-applicant who will be considered a co-borrower for your abroad education loan.
Students without any co-applicants are worried about their eligibility for the loan. While we are taking out the education loan, the first question that every lender asks is, "Who will be your co-applicant?"
However, students who don’t have any co-applicants are also eligible to apply for an education loan abroad.
You can get an education loan abroad without a co-applicant, but before jumping to any final conclusion, it's important to understand why it is considered important to have a co-applicant. Along with the main applicant for the loan, a co-applicant is the other person who co-signs the loan.
There are two kinds of co-applicants: primary and financial. Below is the difference between a primary co-applicant and a financial co-applicant.
Primary Co-Applicant:
Your primary co-applicant is the individual who applies for the loan with you and shares responsibility for timely repayment (ideally your parents or another close member of your family).
Financial Co-Applicant:
The principal co-applicant and financial co-applicant may be the same person, depending on the type of loan you apply for. Alternatively, you might need to add a second financial co-applicant in addition to your primary co-applicant, depending on the circumstances.
According to the bank's education loan policies, having a co-applicant is a strict requirement. Not only that, but a fixed category for the co-applicant has already been mentioned; those include your parents and very close relatives. In some cases, neither a friend nor your spouse will be considered as a co-applicant.
A co-applicant is required to get assurance from the lenders that their loan money will not be lost to non-repayment or any other kind of failure. International lenders are the subject of later talk, but NBFCs have really impacted the entire scenario of lending an education loan to study abroad. Students are now making their way to NBFCs if they are not able to get the loan from public banks due to real factors like the unavailability of collateral or an excellent academic profile.
Below, we have enumerated the possible choices available to students without any co-applicants.
Education loans, no doubt, come with lots of baggage because the cost of higher education at foreign universities is quite high. However, the rate of an education loan to study abroad will largely depend upon the course you have taken, the type of loan, the loan amount, your credit history, and a variety of other factors. The process of lending the loan is now easier in comparison to the process followed by the lenders a decade ago. Now there are more choices for lenders, and the process and duration of the entire loan process have become shorter in comparison to previous times.
Due to this age-old belief, when you and your parents decide to take a loan for your future or education, they will undoubtedly suggest that you go and take it from public banks only. In collateral-based loans, banks are not much bothered with the financial co-applicant; they just need a person other than the main applicant from your family as a source of contact. Secured loans are considered safe even for banks because, in cases of payment defaults, they can recover the loan from the pledged security.
It is undeniable that competition for scholarships is fierce and expensive, so with bank foreign education loans, the only option left is to self-fund your education abroad. This approach is taken by many aspirants who don’t want to take on any debt in student life. It is important to remember that self-financing is a viable option, but one cannot deny the fact that funding living costs, university fees, and travel expenses is not so easy. It can impact all your life savings at once, so it is advisable to look for other possible options, like scholarships and grants, or help from your friends and relatives.
The most important thing to remember is that you must always demonstrate your ability to pay in front of university and visa officials. For this, you must have a large amount of cash to show as proof of funds. Another option you can choose is to ask for financial help from your family and friends. They can pool their resources to help fund your studies abroad.
Scholarships are a way to provide financial support to students who are academically excellent but lacking in financial terms. In recent years, many scholarship programmes have been announced in order to support the education of students financially. With this motive in mind, scholarships have been announced to provide financial aid to students.
In cases where your parents cannot be your co-applicant, you still have the opportunity to apply for the loan. Sometimes we cannot make our parents our co-applicants due to certain factors, like the fact that they already have another loan or that they have not filed the ITR due to a lack of financial knowledge. In this situation, you can make your siblings, like your elder brother, sisters, and first cousins, your financial co-applicants.
Having a financial co-applicant is like having someone's back when things get tough. Your financial co-applicant can help you in times when you are unable to pay off the debts, and the payment can be made by them. In cases where you don’t have collateral to pledge, an unsecured loan is the only option available for students, and private lenders like NBFCs and private banks always consider a financial co-applicant as an indispensable part of an education loan. They also consider the financial capabilities of your co-applicant to get assurance of payment on time.
International lenders are now establishing themselves in India by assisting international students in obtaining college loans. Popular international lenders that have maintained flexibility in the requirements for having co-applicants and collateral from students include M Power and Prodigy Finance.
Here, we've listed a few aspects to think about before choosing to borrow money from a foreign lender.
However, when taking out a loan from these foreign lenders, one must realise that they charge processing costs and interest rates that are far higher than those charged by Indian lenders. This is due to the parity between the processing fees, which range from 2.5% to 5%. Currency value variations are also to blame. These are a few of the drawbacks that students continue to encounter while selecting foreign lenders as their loan source for study abroad. MPower Financing and Prodigy Finance may judge an applicant acceptable for an education loan even if they don't have any valuable collateral or a co-applicant. There are excellent odds of receiving the education loan despite the interest rates and administrative costs, regardless of the lack of collateral or a co-applicant.
In case you need any assistance for your education loan to study abroad, then contact the Education Loan Guru.
By Education Loan Guru
