So yeah. I need to break out of my current life and get back in school. I went to one year and am currently paying for it (literally) working 2 jobs and running myself raggad. At 20 years old I shouldn't be having to do this yet. I plan on trying to get into Ivy Tech near here and take a 2 year nursing course and in the following years after that (while working as a nurse) try for my PHD. Problem: I can't get loans from ANYONE.
My parents just divorced this last September (so sept. of 06) so last year when I tied to get loans for the year I DID get to go to school, it was a government loan you pay back right away. My parents credit is fucked, as is my sisters and grandmothers. I have no credit, so taking a regular college loan is sort of out of the question, as I have no co-signer and cannot just plain get one. The government? I can get like 2000 from them. Not bad as its money, but not enough to go to school full time as working my full-time and part time night job barely earn me enough to survive. I get a small scholarship from Ford where my dad work, 1500 and like a said, its money and that combined with what the governments gives me is more then enough to actully goto school, but leaves me without food and home.
So thats why my problem is. I do not know if my parents being divorced now would help me in anyway, but for the most part whith what digging I have done I have found that beacause I am white and american know one wants to help me
. Any help from anyone in the know would be greatly appricated.
Thanks in advance.
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You pretty much need to find yourself a co-signer. From my experience their credit doesn't have to be phenomenal or anything. Any friends that would be willing to help you out?
I suppose now that my parents are divorced it will be different when I fill out the FAFSA. But last time they didn't help much at all. Like 1500, which hey, its 1500 but when 1 year costs 16000 thats not much.
Unfortunately, this means you usually have to take multiple loans and just cancel them as the scaling-up of lower-interest ones begins to cover what before you needed additional loans to do.
For my first semester, I had two subsidized federal loans and two private ones to cover the $8,000 balance I needed to satisfy by the end of the semester. I'm on deferment now with the federal loans, and paying off the private ones I had to cancel as I'm currently 'abroad' and missing my spring semester before transferring.
Contact someone from where you had your loans previously, and if you have kept the account in good standing (i.e., you have been paying them), you might be able to pick up on the scale where you left off, which would be an additional $1,600+ on average from each source.
Otherwise, just find out every federal loan you can take (preferably subsidized) and jump on them. Federal loans are much more lenient with terms of deferment in my experience, and if you get loans under promise of dire need, there is usually fair provision for deferment after education for a year or so.
I ran into the same kind of problem. It seems when you're only through the first couple years of college, the amount of money you can get from the government is too low to actually attend school with.
What worked for me was kinda "artificially inflating" your years-of-school-attended, which pushes you up to Junior or Senior and gets you more available money per year, by taking classes at a community college. Once you have taken 24 credit hours you're a 2nd-year student, and 48 credit hours makes you a 3rd-year student. And I don't know if the rules are still the same but it helps to be 24 or older, so your parents' income doesn't have to go on your FAFSA any longer.
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Tuition here is usually around £1200 a year as far as i know, and i can't see where the extra money in American universities would go.
I know if i was an American i probably wouldn't be able to attend a good university* and this seems insane since i am a good student. Effectively keeping a large portion of your population out of university seems a tad insane to me is all.
Hell actually im not sure how expensive the average American university is, just what ive heard from people etc, things like $10,000 per semester on tuition fees so if you could clear that up as well it would be fantastic.
Also you don't start paying back your loans here untill you are in a job earning more than £16,000 a year, how does that work in America....sorry if this is derailing this thread i'm just curious. In fact if you want someone wants they can PM me the info so i don't ruin this thread
*good universities are more expensive over there right?
1,200 pounds? Jesus Christ, shitty community colleges cost around 4,000 US dollars a year for a matriculated student.
And those are the shittiest of the shit universities.
If you have bad credit and no co-signer, then welcome to a jolly rogering on private loan interest rates. With the prime rate not being too too horrible right now, it may not hurt as much, but the margin based on your creditworthiness will hurt you. I believe most states have a private loan rate cap near 14%, which is still high, but not as high as it might be. I work in student lending, and have seen some ridiculous interest rates.
Look at grants, look at scholarships. Defray as much of the cost of tuition as you can before taking a non-federal loan, and be sure that the loan program you go for offers things like reduced payment plans and In-School Deferment, which are bells and whistles on private loans, not mandatory benefits.
I only put that there beacause I've had several loan companies tell me that the only way they could approve my loan through them with my parents as a co-signer would be if I where a Minority or a forigner looking to get into american school. I'm not racist or anything. But that does piss me off.