Parents with bad credit

[Vvandenn]

Hello guys. This question has most likely been answered here before, however I cannot find the answer when searching through the threads. Alright, a little background info: I am 18 and an entering freshman. My parents do not have a college degree (dad doesn't even have a high school diploma) and therefore our family only brings in around $60,000 annually. However, there are 5 people in the family to support AND my parents are in severe debt; they haven't paid their taxes in god knows how long. Filing for bankruptcy, tax liens, etc...we can't pay for a thing. And when I say that, I honestly mean that. We have trouble paying for food and I don't even want to mention bills. 🙁 I am barely getting by with enough money from loans this year (since we got denied PLUS loans because of our credit). Thankfully I am working 52+ hours a week during the summer to save up a nestegg of cash to help with things throughout my freshman year.

The question is: when I enter medical school I will be considered an independent correct? I have searched through several med. school's financial pages and some schools will not consider you an independent until you are a certain age or otherwise. Take Yale for example (doesn't mean I am shooting for Yale 😛 ):

For financial aid purposes, Yale does not consider a student to be independent simply by virtue of the fact that the student has not been supported by his/her parents. Independent status at Yale depends on the student's age at matriculation (registration day). Students who are not 29 years old at matriculation must provide parental information, including the Need Access Supplemental Information for both student and parents, as well as for the student's spouse, if applicable.

This leads me to believe that I will not be able to get enough loans. To be blunt, my parents credit is so incredibly horrible that we were denied many large loans that most people are able to receive for undergraduate school. I am afraid this is going to happen in medical school too. All I want is to be indepedent from them; their financial state already dictated where I ended up in college and I don't want it to happen again in medical school. I want to finally move out of Texas and go to an out of state school if at all possible.

On the bright side, my credit is perfect. 😎 Regardless, will my parents mistakes dictate how much I can receive in loans for medical school? Thank you for your time.

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[Vvandenn]

🙂

 

[runningmom]

I have no experience in this. So I have no answers for you. But I'll bump the thread so maybe someone else can help!

Fairness would indicate that you should be considered "independant" at this point. But who knows.

Most school websites have a "financial aid" link - maybe you could call a few of your top choice schools and see what they say? Good luck!

 

[Law2Doc]

This leads me to believe that I will not be able to get enough loans.

I don't know a lot about the world of financial aid. I suspect you can get those guaranteed subsidized federal educational loans (Stafford) regardless of whether your are deemed independent. You can also likely get loans from independent lenders/banks, who may have different threshold's of independency than your school, and will loan you money on the strength of your future MD, albeit at a somewhat less favorable interest rate than you'd get through financial aid. But this is exactly the kind of thing your intended school's financial aid office can answer for you.

 

[dittozip]

Worst case scenario you can do the armed forces thing. like ROTC you can go to med school where ever you want. they pay for every year, books, equipment and $1300 for living.

Different from the ROTC, they are not going to risk your life after the fact b/c they NEED you to save others.

If you do a 9-5 residency like rad/path, you migh even only have to serve here in the US at like walter reid or on Ramstein in Germany.

Best part of all, you get a six pack while you go to med school, and chicks love a guy in uniform

I am very interested in this, but unfortunatly I have the oposite problem and my rents say they will cut me off.

 

[hellodoc]

You can always ask another family member if you can use their taxes for financial aid and just ask for them to claim yoy on their taxes Im sure they would not mind if it is going to help you with school. one of my freinds does it all the time.

 

[Vvandenn]

True, but that is a big thing to ask of someone. "Hey Aunt Billy-joe, want to be responsible for my massive amount of med. school loans alongside with me? It's easy and painless!" Yeah. That will definitely be a last resort for me; I am just trying to see if there was a possibility of not having to do that. Argh.

 

[notdeadyet]

ACK. Do not join the military for the sole sake of college loans, bad idea.

Yale's policy is not unusual. No med school that I've heard about will take a 22 year old and consider them finanicall independent for the purposes of financial aid. Many med schools require parental financial information regardless of age.

The good news is that medical school federal loans (which I believe have a maximum borrowing of $38K per year, or somewhere around there) are not denied because of bad credit history.

You may want to post this in the financial aid forum, but the only credit history that can get you denied for federal student financial aid is defaulting on past student loans. Bankruptcy and the rest won't disqualify.

You'll be all right. And you're far from alone. $60K a year is way over what the average family of five makes in a year. Premeds are often from the "good' side of the tracks, so it's easy to feel that you're poor by comparison. Keep your grades up, do well on the MCAT and there's absolutely no reason you need to inherit your parents mistakes.

Best of luck.

 

[SoCuteMD]

Hello guys. This question has most likely been answered here before, however I cannot find the answer when searching through the threads. Alright, a little background info: I am 18 and an entering freshman. My parents do not have a college degree (dad doesn't even have a high school diploma) and therefore our family only brings in around $60,000 annually. However, there are 5 people in the family to support AND my parents are in severe debt; they haven't paid their taxes in god knows how long. Filing for bankruptcy, tax liens, etc...we can't pay for a thing. And when I say that, I honestly mean that. We have trouble paying for food and I don't even want to mention bills. 🙁 I am barely getting by with enough money from loans this year (since we got denied PLUS loans because of our credit). Thankfully I am working 52+ hours a week during the summer to save up a nestegg of cash to help with things throughout my freshman year.

The question is: when I enter medical school I will be considered an independent correct? I have searched through several med. school's financial pages and some schools will not consider you an independent until you are a certain age or otherwise. Take Yale for example (doesn't mean I am shooting for Yale 😛 ):

For financial aid purposes, Yale does not consider a student to be independent simply by virtue of the fact that the student has not been supported by his/her parents. Independent status at Yale depends on the student's age at matriculation (registration day). Students who are not 29 years old at matriculation must provide parental information, including the Need Access Supplemental Information for both student and parents, as well as for the student's spouse, if applicable.

This leads me to believe that I will not be able to get enough loans. To be blunt, my parents credit is so incredibly horrible that we were denied many large loans that most people are able to receive for undergraduate school. I am afraid this is going to happen in medical school too. All I want is to be indepedent from them; their financial state already dictated where I ended up in college and I don't want it to happen again in medical school. I want to finally move out of Texas and go to an out of state school if at all possible.

On the bright side, my credit is perfect. 😎 Regardless, will my parents mistakes dictate how much I can receive in loans for medical school? Thank you for your time.

I got my private loans for med school based on my credit alone. Once you have a more established credit history ir will be different.

 

[MollyMalone]

Duplicate post from Financial Aid. Posting the same question in multiple forums is not permitted. The FA forum seems more appropriate for this question, so closing.