Loans Question

[Mentis]

I was wondering how student loans work. Do you get it mostly from your FAFSA, or does most of it come from a bank? Also, is tuition the only thing you can use the loan on, or can you use it on basically anything, like food/rent/transportation during the 4 years of school? It might be pretty difficult if I had to pay for rent and food without the loans...

 

[jas15]

The FAFSA is just an application to basically determine financial need, i.e. how much grant money (which you don't have to pay back) you can get. You will take out loans from a lender. In my case the money goes to the school and then the school sends whatever is left, after tuition is taken out, to a bank account and that money can be used for whatever.