Careful there, kids. I'm a fin aid lackey in my day job. The max Stafford for undergrad (including "5th-year undergrad" like Post-Bacs) is $10500 per full financial aid year. Depending on the school, that might be 12 months, it might be 9, or it may be something special -- but within one FA year at 5th-yr undergrad, $15750 is not correct... however this does not mean it can't work.
$5250 is already half of the federal eligibility. You could put that over two regular terms, and call it a year. You could then package things in terms of the timing and structure of the classes to treat Summer term as either a "header" or a "footer" FA term. That would need to draw from either the previous or the next FA year, and there would have to be room for it. If you're using 2006-07 eligibility to create that room, it would only work once, since the rest of 06-07 would be reduced by that same $5250.
On the other hand, at Grad level the yearly max goes to $18500, so no harm done. I don't know about HES and how they do their cost calculations, awarding, etc. ... but the max is the max, so there needs to be another source of funding within that same year, or else a way to do the years in a favorable way. Cheers!
(And yes, Ock, I am totally counting on private bank loans for Bennington. If they don't come through, to quote Han Solo, "well, then I guess this is gonna be a pretty short trip, then, huh.")
