Student Loans In Excess of Cost - Question

[Acturus]

My wife is back in school, and due to the nature of her wishing to return full-time, we took a Pell Grant for $1500 that she qualified for (yay free money), and then applied for a private student loan via our bank for $27,000. That $27K is basically the difference between our cost of living and what I bring home from my job.

Well, she's been back and forth with the school (UCF) and through them she was encouraged or pursuaded or something to actually apply for Federal Aid (we had originally decided not to for some reason or another, I don't remember). She was approved for $7K through the government, but now we're being informed that because her cost of schooling is covered via the $1500 grant and the $7K loan, UCF will not award her the $27K in Private Loans because that money is in excess of the cost of her classes/books/associated fees.

This is the first time we've done this, but I wasn't aware that the school was able to restrict the amount awarded in a private educational loan. Can anyone maybe give a little insight on what I'm missing here? Because apparently if that's the case, we're going to have to cancel the private educational loan, and instead take out a generic private loan for the difference in order to cover the remaining expenses in our cost of living.

I appreciate any response.

[Olo401]

Sound like they're saying "Well if the grant & the $7k government loan cover the cost of all your schooling bills, what's the extra $27k for?"

It's a combination of do you really need the loan and everything else going on in the economy about being overly cautious about lending.

[archibaldcrane]

Also, I have a couple friends that got private school loans in lieu of Federal loans, and their loan terms completely suck.

I'd go federal for as much as you can get. If her education expenses are covered between the fed and grant, why do you want the 27k anyway?

[Acturus]

Well, the number we figured was about 7K to pay for school, and about 20K to cover the fact that she wouldn't work at this time. It's not quite what she made in her last job before changed up, I think she took home 25K a year as an office assistant.

The goal was to put her through full-time in order to finish faster.

I spent the morning doing some more research on terms of student loans, and what it boils down to was that we were fed bad info from a financial aid assistant at the CC she transferred from and we never bothered to double check on our own.

So, we have a couple options here and now. The first is to see if the school can offer any sort of resources for our situation, and in lieu of that, we can re-apply for a generic private loan to cover the next 18 months only and have her switch out of Nursing and into Health Services Administration. The degree isn't as good, and it won't land her the same type of job, but it's a faster track to a piece of paper.

[archibaldcrane]

have her switch out of Nursing and into Health Services Administration. The degree isn't as good, and it won't land her the same type of job, but it's a faster track to a piece of paper.

I'd discourage this move. HSA will provide jobs available too, but there's pretty much nothing in America more secure, no matter where you live, than a nursing degree for a baseline wage+benefits. I'd encourage your wife to work part time and go to school full time to help take the edge off the financial loss, and then get loans to cover the rest.

My sister is in nursing school right now and working 24 hours a week at the hospital. She's kinda overwhelmed, but she's never been a good student. Very few school programs (I'd argue none, but yeah) are so demanding that you can't fit a couple shifts of part-time work into your weekly routine. Between that and working seasonally full-time in the summer, you can cover a lot of basic living expenses during school, especially with a spouse working full time.

[Acturus]

Oh I know. I work in Healthcare, and I happen to be in Health Administration.

It's just supremely annoying that for a job that's desired so much, students have the most trouble getting into the education program.

To clarify why we're even in this mess, last Spring/Summer, my wife blitzed through 33 hours of pre-reqs for the Nursing AS program at the local CC that would start in January (this month, 2009). She finished everything, all with a 4.0, and was even within the first 100 people to turn in her application.

She was denied.

Perfect student, all pre-reqs done, denied.

We were floored at that. What it came down to was that students who were denied in previous semesters had preference over new applicants, regardless of the new applicants' GPA or completion.

So, we moved her out of the AS program and into the university to go after her BS in Nursing, which will start this fall. We're just scared that she'll get denied again for this, and if she's still not at the top of the list at the CC, we fucked.

Throw in all of this worry about paying for it, and we're operating on a lot of assumptions with no real clear goal.

Fun times.

[Vuitton]

Has she considered working part-time while going to school? This way you only go 7K in debt, and have money to live on?

I personally go to school full-time and work full-time. I get $10.5K in federal student loans. ($5.5K subsidized, $5K unsubsidized). That covers all of my tuition for the school year + 2/3 of my rent for the year. I have a studio apartment (to myself) on campus, which is why my student loans will roll over to cover some of those fees.

Working full-time is a bit of a juggle for me, but I am pulling it off at the moment. I could work part-time and still live normally without the extra money, but I'd lose my health and dental which I love. University health insurance sucks so much.

I am sure though that working part-time would be really easy to do with school. Especially when most classes are twice a week. mon+weds, tues+thurs, mon+weds+fri. The classes that meet every day I always make sure to take early in the morning.

But yeah, its normal for student loans to be revoked once they see that they're not needed.