advise on loans and financial aid Sholl students

[want2bepod]

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I am wondering if any students from Sholl who are living off of loans can give me advise on financial aid.

I was lucky enough to get a full scholarship to undergrad college so I have no experience dealing with loans and I am very confused.

What loans do people usually get specifically and how much?

Should I take out the maximum amount in SUBSIDIZED stafford loans? What about Grad Plus?

I am independent, I do not plan on working at all while i am in school so i will be completely living off student loans, and I want to live in a two bedroom on campus apartment. Any help and advise would be great.

Thanks so much

 

[dpmPOD]

Should I take out the maximum amount in SUBSIDIZED stafford loans? What about Grad Plus?

I am independent, I do not plan on working at all while i am in school so i will be completely living off student loans, and I want to live in a two bedroom on campus apartment. Any help and advise would be great.

Thanks so much

Definitely take out the maximum for subsidized stafford loans. Avoid GradPlus loans like the plague. If you're independent, you still need to put one parent's financial info into your FASFA (unless they're rich or something) as to attempt to quality for a health professions loan, which is essentially just another subsidized loan at a decent rate (5% I believe?); I think you can get $5000 on the health professions loan, which is $5000 less in UNsubsidized loans that you'll have to take out. More or less try to avoid GradPlus and UNsubsidized loans as those two types will accrue interest while you are in school and GradPlus has a horrific interest rate. The government pays the interest off for you on subsidized loans while you are in school. Oh, and try to keep your costs low. Be thrifty--you'll be glad you were later.

 

[damhsoir]

Would anyone mind sharing how much $ in loans they took out their first year? I go to a private undergrad and have a buttload of loans, so I want to keep the loans to the absolute minimum (without having to live in a cardboard box). Thanks!

 

[QueenBeePod]

Are you looking for just tuition money or also living expenses? Because i'm sure my frst year was around $35,000 for both tuiton and living expenses.

 

[want2bepod]

What I dont understand though, is how many and which loans you can take out to cover tuition and living expenses and EVERYTHING. Like the maximum amount of money per year that you can get from subsidized stafford loans is something like $8500. And the max for the health professions loans is something like $5000. So that is only a total of $13,500. That doesn't cover tuition and living expenses. Where do you get the rest of the money from? Unsubsidized loans?

Help please

 

[QueenBeePod]

Call the school's financial aid office, they will be way better at explaining the whole process to you.