Student Alternative Loans

Alternative or Private Loan Options

There are a variety of private loans for education that are available to Delaware Valley College students. The Financial Aid Office strongly encourages you to borrow Federal student loans first and then consider the Tuition Pay Payment Plan and/or the PLUS Loan before applying for a student alternative loan.

If you have exhausted less expensive financing options, such as Federal student loans, Tuition Pay Payment Plan and the Parent PLUS loan, you may want to consider a student alternative loan.

The student is the borrower for the alternative loans; however, in most cases, a credit-worthy cosigner is required. Having a credit-worthy cosigner will also likely reduce the cost of the loan (interest rate, up front and back-end fees, etc.) Please be aware that the cosigner is fully responsible for repaying the loan should the borrower stop making payments. There are some alternative loan products that offer a cosigner release option after a specified number of on-time payments are made and the borrower is credit-worthy.

Please click here to compare benefits and features of the PLUS and the student alternative loan (please note: the previous document requires Adobe Reader. To download Adobe Reader free-of-charge, please visit Adobe's website).

How do I select a student alternative loan?

To assist families with choosing an educational lender for Stafford, PLUS and alternative loans, please see our Preferred Lender List and Loan Comparison Tools at Elm Select or our SimpleTuition site to view our preferred lenders. For an understanding of how lenders are selected for recommendation to DelVal students and their families, please see our institutional statement on this subject.

The loan products included on this site are recommended by DelVal; please be aware that you are free to conduct your own research and comparison of alternative loan products and select any lender of your choice.