paying for St Augustine???

Started by kcn002
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kcn002

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I've been accepted into the summer class for the year 2011 and I am wondering how I'm going to pay 90k for the school. Does any recent graduates or people paying about the same for PT school know of the options (scholarships, loans, work-study, and etc) that is out there? And what I could do until May to ease my mind about this money situation????
 
Congrats on an acceptance.

The program has a longer history and seems well suited in manual therapy especially. It is a for-profit designation school that builds schools in areas highly desirable for young 20 year-olds, while putting out large-ish class sizes. Point is that between cost of living in those areas and tuition requirements you'll pay up for it respectively to the tune of 90K + living expenses.

I briefly looked/heard about St. Aug fin aid, and only heard of a thousand or two for a scholarship given out. I doubt that they'd have a major endowment or graduate funds given what I described above beyond minor scholarships. You're likely looking at primarily loans of various sorts.
 
Thanks!

But do you know how easy those loans are to get? And do you know of any pt's paying back loans that are practicing now or any similar professions paying back large amounts of loans? really just want a dose of reality of how long and how much ill be paying it back!
 
I work at a for-profit school and I know that the financial aid people work their tails off to get full loan coverage for students. Our company also has a scholarship fund, which they operate as a tax benefit, to off-set any remaining costs. A lot of these programs know how much they can get loaned to students and then work out tuition to max that out.
If our associates degree students can get $43,000 for their program, I would think you could get $30,000 a year for USA. There are some books on scholarships to go through, but I've noticed that a lot of the scholarship websites are just e-mail collectors for spam.
My current plan is to hit lotto for about 1/2 mil. Buy a house close to campus and have enough for hubby and I to get through school. Not sure if that will pan out though 🙂
 
Hey, I go to st. aug in SD now. As long as you fill out the FAFSA on time, you will get your loans! I haven't heard of anyone not qualifying for those...
Scholarships are very limited, I wouldn't count on it at all unfortunately. Work study is available, but so many people are signed up that you will only get a couple hours a week.
Also... you will need more than 90k by the time all is said & done 🙁
 
but thanks for the advice though...this website has been very useful and inspiring at times when I thought DPT school was not possible...GOD IS GOOD!
 
Bump..

I'm still curious as to how I will be able to pay for it. Tuition going up, I can only get 20.5k for unsub loans, I was denied sallie Mae loan. I tried two other private loans and was denied due to my income to debt ratio (undergraduate loans). I'm trying to save money from work and look into other options to help me pay for school.
 
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yeah, from my acceptance paperwork it looks like it will be 7800K/trimester instead of the 7500K.
 
Wait what? The FL campus is like 12k. Its that cheap at Austin? And excess loans are covered by the grad plus loan for most other programs.

You might try Discover loans for healthcare as well. I think they are offering loans at below the interest rates of the federal government. Not sure. I do not believe you will qualify for government forgiveness programs tho if you use other loans besides the grad plus.
 
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You must be desperate to be bumping up threads from 10/11. You need to do more research on how financial aid works at USA and the different private loans that are available. Looks like USA discontinued the GradPlus back in 2011 in order to maintain the required revenue ratio under title IV. This tells me that before the federal changes in title IV in 2010, USA was relying on a high ratio of federal aid for revenue instead of establishing a trust of some sort and/or were too lazy to fundraise. I hope that changes with the campus expansions adding into the alumni network. No wonder they jumped at the chance of being bought out by Laureate Education.

http://usa-document.com/finances/Student Fin Aid 071111.pdf
 
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kcn002 said:
I've been accepted into the summer class for the year 2011 and I am wondering how I'm going to pay 90k for the school. Does any recent graduates or people paying about the same for PT school know of the options (scholarships, loans, work-study, and etc) that is out there? And what I could do until May to ease my mind about this money situation????
Click to expand...

You don't need to wonder because that's how much I owe. Do travel PT or work in a rural hospital. If you paid $1k/month for 8 years you'd be able to pay off those loans. I don't think USA has any scholarships. Until then, work as much as possible, but don't use that money to pay off loans. Use it to pay for necessities.
 
The loan amount compared to the starting PT salary is a pretty scary thing to think about, especially with a lot of loans accruing interest within months, meaning you come out of school with loans + accrued interest. Our tuition is ~110k not including accrued interest, and we are in downtown Chicago, so rent is also a fairly large expense, depending where you live. Some workings PT's came in during orientation and essentially told us that it is something you get used to and the majority of them were on ~20 year loan plans. Most schools do not seem to have much scholarship or work-study options. I am not sure about loan repayment/forgiveness programs. Here are some links if you wanted to look into it. If they are available, always be conscious of the opportunity costs of taking a job that pays loans. The first job is really important for mobility into the next step and also learning as a starting PT. Depending on the person, finding a mentor-type PT in your first job can really help you a lot in the long run.

http://www.apta.org/DebtManagement/FederalOpportunities/
http://www.apta.org/FederalIssues/EducationWorkforceLegislation/
 
Just curious, does anybody know what the rationale was for moving from subsidized to unsubsidized loans a few years back? Not to play the 'thanks Obama game' or anything, but were subsidized around when he went to law school? What changed?
 
Azimuthal said:
You must be desperate to be bumping up threads from 10/11. You need to do more research on how financial aid works at USA and the different private loans that are available. Looks like USA discontinued the GradPlus back in 2011 in order to maintain the required revenue ratio under title IV. This tells me that before the federal changes in title IV in 2010, USA was relying on a high ratio of federal aid for revenue instead of establishing a trust of some sort and/or were too lazy to fundraise. I hope that changes with the campus expansions adding into the alumni network. No wonder they jumped at the chance of being bought out by Laureate Education.

http://usa-document.com/finances/Student Fin Aid 071111.pdf
Click to expand...
If they discontinued the grad PLUS loan they must have done something to get it back. You are now able to take out grad PLUS loans for USA. It was presented in the interview and were given a packet with information on it. I also talked with the financial aid counselor from San Marcos spelling out exactly what I needed to apply for one. Basically USA students get a direct unsubsidized loan of $20,500 and the rest can either come from grad PLUS or private loans (sallie mae/wells fargo).
 
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