Need help to understand private loans needed for post-bacc

[ceng2doc]

I've a family (the wife, and a kid), and will be a full-time student during my post-bacc studies next year.

I don't have any personal / credit card debts, unpaid car loans, etc. at all, accept for my Federal Loans received to afford my computer science masters degree which will be finished at the end of the Fall semester. My credit history is excellent (actually it's 734 now).

The only option in order to afford a formal, structured post-bacc pre-med program (unless you have that chunk of money) seems to me like to receive 100% private loans, right?

Federal Loan is about $10,500 and just for the first year. Therefore, one should use private loans.

The bottleneck is : if I won't be able to find a way to defer those loans altogether, at least during the glide-year and medical school years, honestly, I'll jeopardize my financial stability as I'll be 100% dependent on that loan I'm gonna be receiving.

1) Can I defer them (especially that private loan that will be received for the psot-bacc) during the glide-year, or at medical school years? How?

2) If one starts paying back that private loan during the glide-year, how can (s)he defer it during medical school (and possibly during residency)? Or, should it be paid off in full before starting at the medical school?

Thanks for any directions and/or advice in advance,

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[Krisss17]

I wish I could give you the answers that you requested, but I can't. I would suggest that you go online and look at the different loans and get information directly from them. Check out salliemae.com as they have information about all different types of loans, including the gradplus loans.

Best of luck

 

[txprodigal]

you should be able to defer during your post bacc program if you're enrolled as a degree seeking student (i'm doing that right now)

as for the glide year, your private loans will usually come with a grace period of typically 6 months but it might vary - best bet is to check the particular loan you're looking at

you should also be able to defer your loans once you begin medical school but be sure to really look at the terms of your loan before you sign the dotted line

as for the 6 months after your grace period and before medical school - the only options i see are to get a job working or to actually sit down and calculate what your expected payments on your loans would be for those 6 months and take out a little bit of extra private loan money so that during those 6 months, you can use that extra loan money you saved to make your loan payments

hopefully that'll work, but even with stellar credit, banks are ridiculously distrusting of borrowers - a lot of banks are just dropping out of the student loan business altogether

good luck

 

[ceng2doc]

you should be able to defer during your post bacc program if you're enrolled as a degree seeking student (i'm doing that right now)

as for the glide year, your private loans will usually come with a grace period of typically 6 months but it might vary - best bet is to check the particular loan you're looking at

you should also be able to defer your loans once you begin medical school but be sure to really look at the terms of your loan before you sign the dotted line

as for the 6 months after your grace period and before medical school - the only options i see are to get a job working or to actually sit down and calculate what your expected payments on your loans would be for those 6 months and take out a little bit of extra private loan money so that during those 6 months, you can use that extra loan money you saved to make your loan payments

hopefully that'll work, but even with stellar credit, banks are ridiculously distrusting of borrowers - a lot of banks are just dropping out of the student loan business altogether

good luck

I wonder if I'll be able to defer the private loan for post-bacc during medical school, if I'll start paying back soon after that grace period? I've heard from someone that if you start paying, then you cannot defer it any more.

I don't know if post-bacc programs will be counted as in "degree seeking" status. Any ideas, or experiences?

Also, am I allowed to take an amount more than the "cost of living" set by the school as a private loan? I don't have prior experience since I used Federal and GradPLUS for my masters studies.

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

thoughts --

1) may want to seriously consider the formal post-bacc path versus taking classes at a local 4 year school. The latter option worked great for me, and many classes were available in the evening (if you're working, income is a good thing!). Very inexpensive option; state schools are really cheap if you're an instate person.

2) degree seeking? a thought, if you go option 1 above, is to sign up, say, as a bio major, and take classes toward this, and then "drop out" after completing the classes you want or need. At my undergrad college, 30% of all freshman never graduated; it's quite typical for a degree seeking student to not actually complete the degree, and maybe you'll find that finishing the degree is the right path for you a year into this!

3) I've looked into available loans to cover 1/2 my household expenses (mortgage, kids). Have not found much available; what I have found says that the assumption is that you will take out loans only for yourself, (not spouse/dependant cost of living), although at least in med school, you can also (state specific) borrow to cover costs for daycare expenses up to the limit. For us this was nice but of limited value, as kids expenses consist of far more than daycare costs.

regarding deferrals - check with the loan to see what one can defer for, and what the limits are; for example, fed loans allow hardship (being broke basically) deferrals up to 3 years total, and these can be broken into different time periods. There is no requirement to continue repayment until the loan is paid off just because you've started repaying; this would not make sense as the intent of some forebearanances (i.e. hardship) is to cover you in a pinch, such as if you lost your job or something.

a final thought on forebearance for private loan -- check out if they have a hardship forebearance that would cover you in the glide year, should you be unable to find a job. Then you've got 6 months after completing the post-bacc until loan payments are due, and would "forebear" for the next 6 months until med school starts.

 

[DrMidlife]

Private lending has changed a great deal in the last year, with the banking crisis. Start looking NOW for a lender who still operates. Sallie Mae and Wells Fargo are still at it, but lenders like Teri and MyRichUncle are apparently out of business.

And private loans that are not tied to cost of attendance, and/or issued through your school, are exceedingly hard to find lately. Either of these cases would be a non-starter for you, with a family to support.

I wonder if I'll be able to defer the private loan for post-bacc during medical school, if I'll start paying back soon after that grace period? I've heard from someone that if you start paying, then you cannot defer it any more.

I've never heard of deferment being tied to ever having made payments. Federal loans are deferrable any time you go back to school. Private loans are going to vary by lender. I have one private loan for undergrad that can't be deferred for additional undergrad studies, but is deferrable when I start a grad program. Read that fine print!

I don't know if post-bacc programs will be counted as in "degree seeking" status. Any ideas, or experiences?

Generally, a postbac program taken for the purpose of finishing med school prereqs doesn't grant a degree, so no, it's not degree seeking. There are some programs in TX or on the east coast that grant a certificate, but I don't know what this does to your degree-seeking status.

A structured program, like USC, Scripps or Mills, is going to support you in getting that $10,500 in federal loans. An unstructured program, like taking classes nonmatric or non-degree-seeking, is less likely in supporting you for federal aid.

One plan to consider is taking on a 2nd bachelors at a public school (any CSU or UC will do). This sets you up to be degree-seeking, to have registration priority, to have lower COA, and to potentially have other perks that give you access to faculty or activities. I'll leave it as an exercise for you to determine whether a 2nd bachelors adds significant time to your plan or not, and whether you are required to finish it once you start.

Another plan to consider is getting out of California until you're done with med school. If your undergrad GPA is under 3.7, I recommend this, because CA is insanely competitive and has the 2nd lowest number of in-state seats (public OR private) per applicant in the nation. CA also has an insanely high cost of living and who knows what the budget situation is going to cause. Consider getting TX residency, which gives you access to a high tech job market (at least in Austin), much more state support for medical education (more schools, lower tuition), low cost of living, etc. Then go back to CA for residency.

My $.02. Best of luck to you.

 

[ceng2doc]

Private lending has changed a great deal in the last year, with the banking crisis. Start looking NOW for a lender who still operates. Sallie Mae and Wells Fargo are still at it, but lenders like Teri and MyRichUncle are apparently out of business.

And private loans that are not tied to cost of attendance, and/or issued through your school, are exceedingly hard to find lately. Either of these cases would be a non-starter for you, with a family to support.


I've never heard of deferment being tied to ever having made payments. Federal loans are deferrable any time you go back to school. Private loans are going to vary by lender. I have one private loan for undergrad that can't be deferred for additional undergrad studies, but is deferrable when I start a grad program. Read that fine print!


Generally, a postbac program taken for the purpose of finishing med school prereqs doesn't grant a degree, so no, it's not degree seeking. There are some programs in TX or on the east coast that grant a certificate, but I don't know what this does to your degree-seeking status.

A structured program, like USC, Scripps or Mills, is going to support you in getting that $10,500 in federal loans. An unstructured program, like taking classes nonmatric or non-degree-seeking, is less likely in supporting you for federal aid.

One plan to consider is taking on a 2nd bachelors at a public school (any CSU or UC will do). This sets you up to be degree-seeking, to have registration priority, to have lower COA, and to potentially have other perks that give you access to faculty or activities. I'll leave it as an exercise for you to determine whether a 2nd bachelors adds significant time to your plan or not, and whether you are required to finish it once you start.

Another plan to consider is getting out of California until you're done with med school. If your undergrad GPA is under 3.7, I recommend this, because CA is insanely competitive and has the 2nd lowest number of in-state seats (public OR private) per applicant in the nation. CA also has an insanely high cost of living and who knows what the budget situation is going to cause. Consider getting TX residency, which gives you access to a high tech job market (at least in Austin), much more state support for medical education (more schools, lower tuition), low cost of living, etc. Then go back to CA for residency.

My $.02. Best of luck to you.

Won't it stand as a negative record before the AdComs if I started to a 2nd bachelor but didn't finish it?

I've a 3.88 GPA from my computer engineering bachelor degree. I've a masters degree on computer science from USC, too.

How do you think it's gonna be tougher to turn back to CA for residency after studying at a medical school in a different state, let's say in TX? Isn't it better to stick to CA even for medical school and apply from there?

 

[DrMidlife]

Won't it stand as a negative record before the AdComs if I started to a 2nd bachelor but didn't finish it?

That's why I'm saying I'll leave it as an exercise to figure out if it's worth it. The interesting question is: how is it reported that a 2nd bachelors is being pursued?

I've a 3.88 GPA from my computer engineering bachelor degree. I've a masters degree on computer science from USC, too.

That's sure a purty GPA. Keep it high and you'll have lots of fun choices in your future.

How do you think it's gonna be tougher to turn back to CA for residency after studying at a medical school in a different state, let's say in TX? Isn't it better to stick to CA even for medical school and apply from there?

The residency app process is completely separate from everything else. CA residencies aren't under pressure to draw from CA at all. Any instate bias is going to be addressed by your CA background. It's extremely premature to start considering residency issues, but pick a specialty and a CA med school, and look at its residency page. Folks come from everywhere. Send a question to a program director if you like.

I'm curious what "better" means to you in the above. Nobody's going to get in the way of you coming back to CA, if that's what you're worried about. CA has boatloads of residencies. If you want to go take advantage of cheap plentiful med schools in TX, you can assume CA will let you back in.

But this is largely a moot discussion, because your GPA is really sweet, so your chances at a CA school are as high as anybody's. Just don't mess around: hire a consultant (such as Judy Colwell) and make sure that your app is squeaky clean and loaded with goodies, so that you are truly well positioned to get into a CA med school against vast hordes of super competitive youngsters.

Best of luck to you.

 

[ceng2doc]

...
But this is largely a moot discussion, because your GPA is really sweet, so your chances at a CA school are as high as anybody's. Just don't mess around: hire a consultant (such as Judy Colwell) and make sure that your app is squeaky clean and loaded with goodies, so that you are truly well positioned to get into a CA med school against vast hordes of super competitive youngsters.

Best of luck to you.

I haven't considered hiring a consultant. How may I access to Judy? Any web sites?

 

[DrMidlife]

I haven't considered hiring a consultant. How may I access to Judy? Any web sites?

Google please.

 

[txprodigal]

enrolling in a second degree program is not uncommon - many post bacc students do this all the time just for the financial aid that you get from the government and perhaps the school itself for being a degree seeking student


at least in texas this happens a lot - one school even encourages it for those who need financial aid