6 Ways to Find Student Loans for Certificate Programs, and Other Funding Ideas

Written by Kat Tretina

January 30, 2020December 3, 2020Career & JobsBig Money Decisions, Featured926Kat Tretina

Updated on January 30, 2020

Editorial Note: The content of this article is based on the author’s opinions and recommendations alone. It may not have been reviewed, commissioned or otherwise endorsed by any of our network partners.

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In today’s challenging job market, having specialized skills is a hot commodity. If you want to switch careers, get a promotion or break into a competitive industry, certificate programs are a good idea. But paying for certification programs isn’t always easy, and you might have trouble tracking down certificate program student loans.

Whatever your approach, we’ve got you covered. Here are six ways you can pay for continuing education programs without wiping out your savings or running up credit card debt.

Before borrowing certificate program student loans, check for employer funds
Apply for federal financial aid
Search for private certificate program student loans
Ask about payment plan options
Consider a personal loan
Apply far and wide to scholarships

1. Before borrowing student loans for certificate programs, check for employer funds

One of the best places to get financial assistance for certificate programs is through your current employer. Many companies offer tuition or education reimbursement for continuing education. That’s especially true if the program you’re looking at can help you improve or expand your skills for your current role.

For example, if you’re a programmer and want to learn Ruby On Rails to create web applications, that’s a big benefit to your boss. Even if your employer doesn’t have a formal tuition reimbursement program in place, it could be willing to cover your costs if you can make a good case.

Consider preparing a proposal for your manager that outlines what you intend to learn. Be sure to include what the cost is and how it will benefit your work and the company’s bottom line.

2. Apply for federal financial aid

The government offers student loans and grants for some continuing education programs. Federal student loans tend to have lower interest rates and repayment terms than private student loans. This makes them an excellent choice for paying for certificate programs.

To get federal assistance, the first step is to complete the Free Application For Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Even if you graduated from college years ago, the FAFSA is essential for gaining access to financial aid for certificate programs.

Once you fill out the FAFSA, look for programs that are eligible for federal financial aid. One excellent resource is the National Center For Education Statistics’ College Navigator. You can search for certification programs in your field and find out which certificate program student loans or grants you’re eligible for.

3. Search for private certificate program student loans

Although private student loans don’t tend to be as flexible as federal ones, they can be a useful option for paying for certificate programs. The best private student loan lenders offer flexible repayment plans and competitive rates.

Plus, some offer extra perks, such as interest rate reductions or deferment in the case of financial hardship. Before choosing a lender, make sure to shop around and compare your options.

Not only will comparison shopping help you find your best offer, but it will ensure you’ve found a lender who’s willing to provide a student loan for your certificate program.

4. Ask about payment plan options

Another option to consider is a payment plan directly through your program’s school. Many boot camps and certificate programs offer flexible payment options.

For example, Bloc is one of the most well-respected computer and design coding boot camps out there. It offers payment plans that fit your individual needs. You have to contact them and share your budget with a student advisor, and they’ll come up with a plan that works for you.

While you’ll still need to come up with the money yourself, payment plans can help you manage your budget. Rather than coming up with the money all at once, you can pay your tuition in installments so you don’t have to wipe out your savings account.

5. Consider a personal loan

If certificate program student loans aren’t an option and your employer won’t cover the cost of certificate programs, a personal loan could help. Personal loans tend to have lower interest rates than credit cards and set repayment terms, so you could save money in interest charges.

That said, some personal loans still come with high interest rates, which make them expensive and difficult to pay back. Before taking out a personal loan, make sure you can afford to pay back the principal amount, interest and any associated fees.

6. Apply far and wide to scholarships

Since scholarships do not have to be repaid, they’re a valuable way to pay for school without racking up debt. Some schools, such as Bloc and the FlatIron School, offer scholarships to help offset the tuition cost. But there are also thousands of other scholarships you could be eligible for that can help you pay for your education.

FastWeb and Scholarships.com are two useful resources that can connect adult learners with scholarship opportunities nationwide. You can find and apply for as many scholarships as you wish, as there is no limit to how many you can receive.

Paying for certificate and continuing education programs

Certificate programs can be a great way to advance your career with an affordable credential. Paying for continuing education programs and finding certificate program student loans can be complicated, but there are options that can reduce the financial burden.

For more information, check out the best certificate programs to change your career.

Rebecca Safier contributed to this article.

Interested in refinancing student loans?

Here are the top 9 lenders of 2022!

Lender	Variable APR	Eligible Degrees
	2.49% – 11.72%¹	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Splash
	2.50% – 6.30%²	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Laurel Road
	4.13% – 7.39%³	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Lendkey
	2.49% – 7.99%⁴	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Earnest
	2.49% – 7.99%⁵	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit NaviRefi
	3.24% – 8.24%⁶	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit SoFi
	2.48% – 7.98%	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Elfi
	1.74% – 7.99%⁷	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Purefy
	3.69% – 9.92%⁸	Undergrad & Graduate	Visit Citizens
Check out the testimonials and our in-depth reviews! ¹ Important Disclosures for Splash Financial. Splash Financial Disclosures Terms and Conditions apply. Splash reserves the right to modify or discontinue products and benefits at any time without notice. Rates and terms are also subject to change at any time without notice. Offers are subject to credit approval. To qualify, a borrower must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident in an eligible state and meet applicable underwriting requirements. Not all borrowers receive the lowest rate. Lowest rates are reserved for the highest qualified borrowers. If approved, your actual rate will be within a range of rates and will depend on a variety of factors, including term of loan, a responsible financial history, income and other factors. Refinancing or consolidating private and federal student loans may not be the right decision for everyone. Federal loans carry special benefits not available for loans made through Splash Financial, for example, public service loan forgiveness and economic hardship programs, fee waivers and rebates on the principal, which may not be accessible to you after you refinance. The rates displayed may include a 0.25% autopay discount. The information you provide to us is an inquiry to determine whether we or our lenders can make a loan offer that meets your needs. If we or any of our lending partners has an available loan offer for you, you will be invited to submit a loan application to the lender for its review. We do not guarantee that you will receive any loan offers or that your loan application will be approved. Offers are subject to credit approval and are available only to U.S. citizens or permanent residents who meet applicable underwriting requirements. Not all borrowers will receive the lowest rates, which are available to the most qualified borrowers. Participating lenders, rates and terms are subject to change at any time without notice. To check the rates and terms you qualify for, Splash Financial conducts a soft credit pull that will not affect your credit score. However, if you choose a product and continue your application, the lender will request your full credit report from one or more consumer reporting agencies, which is considered a hard credit pull and may affect your credit. Splash Financial and our lending partners reserve the right to modify or discontinue products and benefits at any time without notice. To qualify, a borrower must be a U.S. citizen and meet our lending partner’s underwriting requirements. Lowest rates are reserved for the highest qualified borrowers. This information is current as of September 6, 2022. ² Important Disclosures for Laurel Road. Laurel Road Disclosures All credit products are subject to credit approval. Laurel Road began originating student loans in 2013 and has since helped thousands of professionals with undergraduate and postgraduate degrees consolidate and refinance more than $9 billion in federal and private school loans. Laurel Road also offers a suite of online graduate school loan products and personal loans that help simplify lending through customized technology and personalized service. In April 2019, Laurel Road was acquired by KeyBank, one of the nation’s largest bank-based financial services companies. Laurel Road is a brand of KeyBank National Association offering online lending products in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. All loans are provided by KeyBank National Association, a nationally chartered bank. Member FDIC. For more information, visit www.laurelroad.com. As used throughout these Terms & Conditions, the term “Lender” refers to KeyBank National Association and its affiliates, agents, guaranty insurers, investors, assigns, and successors in interest. Checking your rate with Laurel Road only requires a soft credit pull, which will not affect your credit score. To proceed with an application, a hard credit pull will be required, which may affect your credit score. Savings vary based on rate and term of your existing and refinanced loan(s). Refinancing to a longer term may lower your monthly payments, but may also increase the total interest paid over the life of the loan. Refinancing to a shorter term may increase your monthly payments, but may lower the total interest paid over the life of the loan. Review your loan documentation for total cost of your refinanced loan. After loan disbursement, if a borrower documents a qualifying economic hardship, we may agree in our discretion to allow for full or partial forbearance of payments for one or more 3-month time periods (not to exceed 12 months in the aggregate during the term of your loan), provided that we receive acceptable documentation (including updating documentation) of the nature and expected duration of the borrower’s economic hardship. During any period of forbearance interest will continue to accrue. At the end of the forbearance period, any unpaid accrued interest will be capitalized and be added to the remaining principle amount of the loan. Automatic Payment (“AutoPay”) Discount: if the borrower chooses to make monthly payments automatically from a bank account, the interest rate will decrease by 0.25% and will increase back if the borrower stops making (or we stop accepting) monthly payments automatically from the borrower’s bank account. The 0.25% AutoPay discount will not reduce the monthly payment; instead, the discount is applied to the principal to help pay the loan down faster. Assumptions: Repayment examples above assume a loan amount of $10,000 with repayment beginning immediately following disbursement. Repayment examples do not include the 0.25% AutoPay Discount. Annual Percentage Rate (“APR”): This term represents the actual cost of financing to the borrower over the life of the loan expressed as a yearly rate. Interest Rate: A simple annual rate that is applied to an unpaid balance. Variable Rates: The current index for variable rate loans is derived from the one-month London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) and changes in the LIBOR index may cause your monthly payment to increase. Borrowers who take out a term of 5, 7, or 10 years will have a maximum interest rate of 9%, those who take out a 15 or 20-year variable loan will have a maximum interest rate of 10%. KEYBANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION RESERVES THE RIGHT TO MODIFY OR DISCONTINUE PRODUCTS AND BENEFITS AT ANY TIME WITHOUT NOTICE. This information is current as of April 29, 2021. Information and rates are subject to change without notice. ³ Important Disclosures for LendKey. LendKey Disclosures Refinancing via LendKey.com is only available for applicants with qualified private education loans from an eligible institution. Loans that were used for exam preparation classes, including, but not limited to, loans for LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, and GRE preparation, are not eligible for refinancing with a lender via LendKey.com. If you currently have any of these exam preparation loans, you should not include them in an application to refinance your student loans on this website. Applicants must be either U.S. citizens or Permanent Residents in an eligible state to qualify for a loan. Certain membership requirements (including the opening of a share account and any applicable association fees in connection with membership) may apply in the event that an applicant wishes to accept a loan offer from a credit union lender. Lenders participating on LendKey.com reserve the right to modify or discontinue the products, terms, and benefits offered on this website at any time without notice. LendKey Technologies, Inc. is not affiliated with, nor does it endorse, any educational institution. Subject to floor rate and may require the automatic payments be made from a checking or savings account with the lender. The rate reduction will be removed and the rate will be increased by 0.25% upon any cancellation or failed collection attempt of the automatic payment and will be suspended during any period of deferment or forbearance. As a result, during the forbearance or suspension period, and/or if the automatic payment is canceled, any increase will take the form of higher payments. The lowest advertised variable APR is only available for loan terms of 5 years and is reserved for applicants with FICO scores of at least 810. As of 09/09/2022 student loan refinancing rates range from 4.13% APR – 7.39% Variable APR with AutoPay and 2.99% APR – 9.93% Fixed APR with AutoPay. ⁴ Rate range above includes optional 0.25% Auto Pay discount. Important Disclosures for Earnest. Earnest Disclosures You can choose between fixed and variable rates. Fixed interest rates are 3.99% – 8.74% APR (3.74% – 8.49% APR with Auto Pay discount). Starting variable interest rates are 2.74% APR to 8.24% APR (2.49% – 7.99% APR with Auto Pay discount). Variable rates are based on an index, the 30-day Average Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) plus a margin. Variable rates are reset monthly based on the fluctuation of the index. We do not currently offer variable rate loans in AK, CO, CT, HI, IL, KY, MA, MN, MS, NH, OH, OK, SC, TN, TX, and VA. ⁵ Important Disclosures for Navient. Navient Disclosures You can choose between fixed and variable rates. Fixed interest rates are 3.99% – 8.74% APR (3.74% – 8.49% APR with Auto Pay discount). Starting variable interest rates are 2.74% APR to 8.24% APR (2.49% – 7.99% APR with Auto Pay discount). Variable rates are based on an index, the 30-day Average Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) plus a margin. Variable rates are reset monthly based on the fluctuation of the index. We do not currently offer variable rate loans in AK, CO, CT, HI, IL, KY, MA, MN, MS, NH, OH, OK, SC, TN, TX, and VA. ⁶ Important Disclosures for SoFi. SoFi Disclosures Fixed rates range from 3.99% APR to 8.24% APR with a 0.25% autopay discount. Variable rates from 3.24% APR to 8.24% APR with a 0.25% autopay discount. Unless required to be lower to comply with applicable law, Variable Interest rates on 5-, 7-, and 10-year terms are capped at 8.95% APR; 15- and 20-year terms are capped at 9.95% APR. Your actual rate will be within the range of rates listed above and will depend on the term you select, evaluation of your creditworthiness, income, presence of a co-signer and a variety of other factors. Lowest rates reserved for the most creditworthy borrowers. For the SoFi variable-rate product, the variable interest rate for a given month is derived by adding a margin to the 30-day average SOFR index, published two business days preceding such calendar month, rounded up to the nearest one hundredth of one percent (0.01% or 0.0001). APRs for variable-rate loans may increase after origination if the SOFR index increases. The SoFi 0.25% autopay interest rate reduction requires you to agree to make monthly principal and interest payments by an automatic monthly deduction from a savings or checking account. This benefit will discontinue and be lost for periods in which you do not pay by automatic deduction from a savings or checking account. The benefit lowers your interest rate but does not change the amount of your monthly payment. This benefit is suspended during periods of deferment and forbearance. Autopay is not required to receive a loan from SoFi. ⁷ Important Disclosures for Purefy. Purefy Disclosures Purefy Student Loan Refinancing Rate and Terms Disclosure: Annual Percentage Rates (APR) ranges and examples are based on information provided to Purefy by lenders participating in Purefy’s rate comparison platform. For student loan refinancing, the participating lenders offer fixed rates ranging from 2.73% – 7.99% APR, and variable rates ranging from 1.74% – 7.99% APR. The maximum variable rate is 25.00%. Your interest rate will be based on the lender’s requirements. In most cases, lenders determine the interest rates based on your credit score, degree type and other credit and financial criteria. Only borrowers with excellent credit and meeting other lender criteria will qualify for the lowest rate available. Rates and terms are subject to change at any time without notice. Terms and conditions apply. ⁸ Important Disclosures for Citizens. CitizensBank Disclosures Education Refinance Loan Rate Disclosure: Variable interest rates range from 3.69%-9.92% (3.69%-9.92% APR). Fixed interest rates range from 4.49%-10.11% (4.49%-10.11% APR). Undergraduate Rate Disclosure: Variable interest rates range from 6.39%- 9.60% (6.39% – 9.60% APR). Fixed interest rates range from 6.58% – 9.79% (6.58% – 9.79% APR). Graduate Rate Disclosure: Variable interest rates range from 3.69% – 9.16% (3.69% – 9.16% APR). Fixed interest rates range from 4.49% – 9.35% (4.49% – 9.35% APR). Education Refinance Loan for Parents Rate Disclosure: Variable interest rates range from 3.69%- 9.09% (3.69%- 9.09% APR). Fixed interest rates range from 4.49% – 9.28% (4.49% – 9.28% APR). Medical Residency Refinance Loan Rate Disclosure: Variable interest rates range from 3.69% – 9.16% (3.69% – 9.16% APR). Fixed interest rates range from 4.49% – 9.35% (4.49% – 9.35% APR).

6 Ways to Find Student Loans for Certificate Programs, and Other Funding Ideas