Loans for dental school

[arlmay]

So I've seen a lot of questions and conversation lately regarding financial aid for dental school. Thinking about this for me personally I plan to have to take out loans for tuition and living expenses for the most part in the fall. I am aware that the loans for graduate and professional school are at high rates (5 or 6% interest) and are unsubsidized.

I'm curious on everyone else's opinion or if they have done something similar on the idea of taking out the maximum amount of, ideally subsidized but also unsubsidized, undergrad loans for this year and hold onto the money until the fall to use for living expenses, tuition, books, fees etc. I have spoken to my schools financial aid and they told me that if you stay in a graduate or professional program the loans will not need to be paid and in the case of subsidized loans not even accrue interest while in dental school. Why not take advantage of these better rates and have some loans subsidized and not even accrue interest. It seems too good to be true. I do realize that these loans are not near enough to cover a significant amount of the dental school cost but why not get the better rates for a few thousand youll have to borrow anyways. It seems like a loophole for at least some of the cost. If you were confident of getting into dental school you could be withdrawing your maximum of subsidized loans through 4 years at university and at the very least just sit on the money in a bank account (or in some other higher yielding investment) and using that money to later pay for dental school and avoid the crappy graduate rates as well as being subsidized. I imagine most people could accumulate as much as 25-30k which puts a good dent in the cost of your first year at some dental schools.
I'm seriously considering doing this... any opinions?

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[UltimateHombre]

A lot of good thoughts and i don't see any problem with doing this. Once you take out the loans, you can do whatever you want with the money.

If you can save 25-30K it might be worth it, but if we are only talking about a couple thousand, it might be more of a hassle than anything, as we are talking about pennies on the dollar at that point. I think the hard part here, is that most undergraduates are not financially disciplined enough to save that kind of money. They will find some way to spend it all and then screw themselves. If you know yourself to be fiscally responsible than go for it.

 

[steiner2]

I prob have $30k saved but honestly that won't make a dent after 4 years. Tuition alone is ~60/year. I am going to work my butt off and get good grades and shoot for a specialty. After 4 years, my loans will hopefully be paid off by then.

 

[arlmay]

I prob have $30k saved but honestly that won't make a dent after 4 years. Tuition alone is ~60/year. I am going to work my butt off and get good grades and shoot for a specialty. After 4 years, my loans will hopefully be paid off by then.

Well I wish I had thought the financial
situation out at the beginning of undergrad
to save a bunch but personally ill take
advantage of what I can at this point and
withdraw the maximum on my loans for the
year. This will give me about 5k in both subsidized and unsubsidized loans which will probably cover my living expenses for at least the first year. In doing this ill probably save 10k in interest payments over the life of the loan. 10k is worth my 5 minutes of going online and accepting the loan through financial aid. Its also a very small risk in general because all things aside, its money ill have to withdraw in the fall anyways at a higher rate

 

[Dgeorg6]

They don't have subsidized loans for grad students anymore I do not believe.

If you get all your money out in the 1st year you will have all that money just sitting there gaining interest. Smarter to wait and get them separate years to have 1 year less interest on them.