How would a non-working college student, about to graduate, with a good-paying job in line to start in June go about getting a personal loan for ... say about $5000 ?

3/22/2007 11:51:47 AM

Either your bank or a general lender like Chase, Citi, WellsFargo, etc. They all will have links for personal loans on their front page.

What is the loan for? If it is a purchase then a credit card 0% intro rate is always a possibility if you know you can handle it in the near future.

3/22/2007 11:56:41 AM

been to citi and wells and SECU

since im non-working they wont do it. the thing is i need money to last until i DO start my job, which won't be until June.

3/22/2007 11:58:56 AM

yeah, if all else fails, get a credit card.

if you need cash, you can do cash withdrawals on it. you'll pay for it, but i guess its better then going hungry.

3/22/2007 12:00:26 PM

Credit card should be doable if it is living expenses then. Should be able to afford minimum payments and be able to cover the interest from just a few months.

3/22/2007 12:01:53 PM

how fast can a credit card be issued (and how big of a credit limit?)

lol i throw away all those things in the mail, maybe ill have one today

my credit score is around 740 i think, i did that freecreditreport.com thing a little while back

[Edited on March 22, 2007 at 12:03 PM. Reason : ]

3/22/2007 12:01:56 PM

you can get a credit card pretty fast if you do it online (within a week).

i dont know about the credit limit though...thats going to depend on your situation.

3/22/2007 12:03:22 PM

i just applied for one

wish me luck, it said itll take 7-10 days

3/22/2007 12:18:00 PM

Credit limit varies by card and by company. When I was fresh out of college AmEx would only give me $1500 but a USAA Platinum MC gave me $20,000. All the major credit companies have breakdowns on the various card types so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding what fits your need. A student card usually has no income requirement, you just have a higher interest rate (like 17% APR). It will be important for you to pay it off as soon as possible and switch to a non-student card once you are elgible (to which you can probably transfer the balance at 0% for 12-18 months). You just need to be sure you don't spend excessively because you can easily bury yourself in debt with these high rates. I would try to land some odd jobs to get extra cash because cash advances on credit cards usually have a higher rate and a fee associated. Use your credit card for every purchase and bill paying that you can and only spend cash when absolutely mandatory.

If you belong to something like USAA then you can get much better deals, but you or a parent must have been military.

3/22/2007 12:20:21 PM

does it hurt my credit if i apply to multiple cards, like i see an AmEx card can give instant online approval, which would be nice to get a card as fast as i can.

3/22/2007 12:25:26 PM

not sure how much it will hurt it.

but having a lot of cards does take it down because of risk factors with multiple cards.

but im sure with 2, maybe 3 you could get a total of $5K limit

3/22/2007 12:27:01 PM

see i wonder if i am able to put my future job on as employment yet, or if i still have to treat myself as a student

if its the latter, then it limits me on some of the instant approval options...like i saw one for Discover, but i rarely see Discover logos in windows

[Edited on March 22, 2007 at 12:30 PM. Reason : ]

3/22/2007 12:29:35 PM

In most lending situations they won't consider future earnings, only what you can earn right now. Student cards are are about the only ones geared towards future earnings. You have good credit so it shouldn't be too hard to get a decent credit card.

In all honesty, if you do end up needing more than one credit card you are better off waiting until you build up debt on one card and then balance transfer to a second new card in a few months. Getting two right now achieves little.

3/22/2007 12:43:17 PM

oh i wasnt gonna get 2 to use both, but just in case one's credit limit was higher than the other

3/22/2007 12:44:06 PM

740 is an excellent credit rating for a college student. I doubt you'll have much trouble finding a credit card.

Don't take out too much credit because it looks bad if you are currently making $15k a year and you have a $20k credit limit.

Also, be aware of how much debt you rack up because it can also look bad if you use the full amount of your credit (i.e., you have a $5k limit and $4.8k worth of credit debt.) It ends up looking like you are stretched to your limits.

3/22/2007 1:41:57 PM

Get the Bank of America platinum card:

0% APR on purchases, balance transfers AND cash advance checks for 1 year.

7-12,000 limit.

1% minimum monthly payment.

The cash advance checks are awesome, and really make the card a good short-term alternative to a small bank loan.

3/22/2007 2:40:38 PM

when you say 7-12k does that mean guaranteed at least 7

3/22/2007 4:22:27 PM

Quote :

"740 is an excellent credit rating for a college student"

3/22/2007 4:23:28 PM

yea i got that rating from that free credit report website, which i think used Experian or something

3/22/2007 4:29:40 PM

my credit score was 680 last i checked

I have a USAA credit card which I never use ($1500 limit) and a citicard ($6500 limit). Citicard started me with $1500 like 5 yrs ago and it's gradually gone up. And recently I closed on a $125k condo with a 100% loan... so I think you'll get some kind of credit card with at least the credit score I have.

3/22/2007 4:58:55 PM

If you aren't taking out student loans, you can take out ~$5500 per year as a dependent. I don't know what consolidation rates/repayment terms are these days, but its an option to consider. And its not too late to apply for the 06-07 school year. You'll get a negative balance in your account and it will come back as a refund. We just did this with my fiancee and it'll work out well for us.

[Edited on March 22, 2007 at 5:38 PM. Reason : .]

3/22/2007 5:37:31 PM

thanks for the help but im graduating

3/22/2007 5:56:34 PM

But you have not yet graduated, so you can still do this.

3/22/2007 6:04:39 PM

if i have loans through College Foundation, can i still do it

3/22/2007 6:11:38 PM

get a credit card with 0% transfer and access checks until jan or sometime later........write access check......Profit

3/22/2007 6:27:11 PM

i will, with 25% interest

3/22/2007 6:48:07 PM

not just any credit card...a card which gives you 0 % apr on purchases as well as balance transfers!!! more than anything u need the 0 % into rate on purchases...

SunTrust has a CC - 9 month - 0 % apr int. credit card...

3/22/2007 11:29:06 PM

when i was in a similar situation in college (just needed a little extra money in addition to my jobs to get me through my last year), the biggest limit i could find was $1500. this was about 3 years ago though, and i had no prior credit history.

3/22/2007 11:55:02 PM

if you used freecreditreport.com, make sure you cancel it before the free trial is up or they'll bill you $12 every month. i didn't realize the "free" in their name wasn't really free. the government gives you a free report once a year and you get that at annualcreditreport.com.

if you get alot of offers in the mail, it's worth it to open them. i just got an offer from bank of america with a $7895 guaranteed acceptance limit, but in the same stack of mail also had one with a $300 limit.

college foundation rates are 6.8 it looks like. you can try to get more money from them. the school limits you to a certain amount per year but you can ask for more if you really need it.

[Edited on March 23, 2007 at 12:32 AM. Reason : CFI]

3/23/2007 12:30:13 AM

you can actually get 3 credit reports per year (one from each agency/company).

3/23/2007 12:51:20 AM

yea i cancelled the free credit report thing in time

the guy on the phone kept trying to get me to sign up for the premium whatever and i was like "nah nope nuh uhh..no thanks"

3/23/2007 1:19:10 AM

A good zero percent interest card for at least six months if not 12 or in some cases 18. Amex had me a card like 3 or 4 days later. Always pay it off in full when you start making money blah blah you know this already.

3/23/2007 4:01:48 AM

capital one denied me

three reasons:
1-"presence of collection action or judgment"
this has been paid within the last week :-\
2-"proportion of revolving account balances to credit limit or high credit is too high"
what? maybe its because my other capital one card has an available credit is like $60 when the credit line is $700"
3-"insufficient credit history"
so?

[Edited on March 29, 2007 at 5:38 PM. Reason : sdfgsdfg]

3/29/2007 5:38:34 PM

^ yep those will do it to you

3/29/2007 7:54:26 PM

w000t

i got a card acceptance

and a nice credit limit too

3/30/2007 6:40:21 PM

doh

thought it was 0.0 apr till january on purchases, but its 0.0 for balance transfer

purchases are like 13%

4/7/2007 9:25:11 PM

4/7/2007 11:53:13 PM

Gotta read that fine print. Those cards can get ya.

4/8/2007 9:50:27 PM

i found a loophole

well its probly not really a loophole, but i figured out a way to continue to not have any interest on my credit card purchases, until Jan at least

4/9/2007 1:25:16 AM

What card is it? I want to read the terms.

4/9/2007 10:44:18 AM

is your loop hole moving your balance to new cards to take advantage of interest free offers? cause thats a bad idea

4/9/2007 10:47:27 AM

Has anyone who's a student been able to get additional loan money for graduation expenses/unanticipated personal expenses?

My financial need as determined by the financial aid office has been met, but my EFC is 0 and my mother can't help me pay for things I need like registering for Praxis tests and stuff like that. Since I've only taken out about $1,000 in loans this year I wanted to see if I could take out some more. I've emailed my financial aid advisor but I thought I would ask here as well.

4/25/2007 10:02:03 AM