Hello everyone,
I am new to posting on this forum but have been following it ever since DACA was announced. I would like to use this post to introduce myself as well as ask a few questions.
I've been living in the U.S. for 26 years now, all in the state of New York, and received DACA last year. Finally after so long I am in a position to actually move forward in life. About 6 months ago I started actively looking into going to college. There were quite a few road blocks for me to overcome in order to attend, biggest being tuition rate. After about 3 months of getting the run around I finally confirmed that I would be able to receive in state tuition and registered for summer semester. But because it took so long for me to register, I was unable to secure a student loan for the summer semester, which was another big road block.
I knew from the start that financial aid was not an option. But I believed it wouldn't be hard for me to secure a private student loan, especially since I have fair credit. Before I even registered for school I was looking into student loans. After speaking with a few bankers from Wells Fargo, I felt confident I would be able to secure the loan with out a co-signer. In the end, I couldn't even get a loan from them even with a co-signer. They have a policy where if the applicant is an immigrant, the co-signer must be a U.S. Citizen that earns more then 12k a year. While I have a number of family members that are citizens, I am extremely reluctant to ask them.
After some searching, I found Sallie Mae and after asking a few questions I was told that they would accept my DACA info for the loan. A month later, they tell me DACA is not accepted and I would need to provide a valid I-94 for them to process the loan. I don't even have an original I-94 because when I came to this country, I-94's weren't given to children under a certain age. I found all of this out yesterday and I start classes on Wednesday.
With that explanation I would like to finally ask my question lol. Has anyone gone through a similar situation? Or dose anyone know of any lenders that currently approve DACA applicants for student loans?
Regardless of getting a loan or not I will attend college, but with out a loan I can't afford more then 1-2 classes a semester.
Thank you for your time and I hope everyone has a good holiday weekend.
