What if the financial aid package isn't enough?

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IdahoFZ

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I have a question for the non-traditional DO students out there - what do you do if the financial aid package isn't enough?

I'm an incoming DO student at LMU-DCOM (in Harrogate, TN), and I have a wife and two kids. I recently received my financial aid award - after paying tuition & fees, we'll be left with about $20k a year to live on. We try to live as frugally as possible, but even so, I seriously doubt we can get by on just $20k a year.

The financial aid counselor told me she's sorry, but there's nothing she can do. 😕 I've already been awarded the maximum loan amounts (Direct Subsidized, Unsubsidized, and Grad PLUS) up to the cost of attendance for the school, and apparently you can't borrow in excess of that.

Are there any other sources of loans/scholarships? I've done quite a bit of searching, but can't seem to find anything!

Thanks in advance!
 
Ok, my understanding is that you have to apply for a waiver that shows because of family need you need more money. Additionally, what are the options for your wife to work a PT job? An extra 10k/yr can make a difference. Otherwise, contact private lenders and ask...
 
@OP

You are left with 20K to live on after financial aid for tuition and books? I'm curious, does your wife earn money? The reason I ask is my husband does well financially, but we have many bills.

I was counting on getting financial aid (loans) to cover tuition and books, and living off my husbands money. Does it not work this way? Is it possible that they will not loan me all the money for tuition?
 
@mafunk, you can take out 100% of the cost of attendance, which is the schools calculation of living expenses, tuition, et al... So look at your individual schools and see what their cost of attendance is versus the tuition, it will give you an idea what they leave you to live on

So the UMN med school states the cost of attendance as ~55k for a resident and 63k for non-residents. It leaves you with ~19k for living expenses, and 2400 for health insurance.
 
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I heard that you can work in the summer (internships) in the hospital associated with your medical school. It will help financially if the loans are not enough. Does anyone know if this info is correct?
 
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Again your wife cant work little? I can't imagine living off a loans!!
 
I heard that you can work in the summer (internships) in the hospital associated with your medical school. It will help financially if the loans are not enough. Does anyone know if this info is correct?
There may be the odd school that has this opportunity, but on the whole, it is *not* correct. You have one summer off in med school, which is the summer between first and second years. Many people use that time to do research. There *are* myriad summer research fellowships for med students; maybe that's what you're thinking of. But we're talking about a few thousand dollars for the summer here, not enough to support a family of four. Your other two summers in med school will be spent studying for Step 1 after second year, and doing rotations/applying for residency after third year. Definitely not time to throw in a hospital job there, even if you could get one!

OP, have you tried making a monthly budget of your actual expenses yet? Having lived around the South, I can tell you it's entirely possible that COL in rural TN is low enough that the amount they offered you will be sufficient even though it wouldn't be in a big city. So the first thing you need to do is talk to some current students with families and see how they've been managing. If you don't know any, ask the school for some names.

It's unlikely that all of the students with families are being left high and dry. But if you do find that there is no way for the loans to be stretched far enough, and your spouse is stay-at-home, I suggest seeing if you could find someone who would pay her to care for their child in your home during work hours. This would allow her to continue to stay at home full time while providing some extra income. If you all do decide to go this route, make sure she follows whatever the local laws are for childcare providers (CPR training, etc). Again, I would also ask other students with families how they've been managing. There *is* some way to make it work; you just haven't talked to the right people yet.

Congrats on your acceptance and best of luck. 🙂
 
I was in the same situation. When I started medschool three years ago I had four children between the ages of 3 and 8. I took the HPSP 'scholarship', which pays tuition, books, and approx $2000/month. I attend school in an expensive city and our rent alone, the first year, was $1900/month. Obviously we could not live off the stipend only. And we did not want the children in daycare--for one thing, with as many children as we have, it didn't make sense economically unless my husband could bring home more than 50K per year. And he would not have been making that much had he worked full time, not in his field of work.

So, the first two years of medschool they allowed me to take out Stafford loans on top of the scholarship money. The HPSP money was considered income, not scholarship money, since we are taxed on it and are expected to work for it (attend OBLC, etc). It was not calculated toward satisfying my student expenses and I was permitted to take out the max loan amt. Altogetber we lived on about $40k per year plus the $8000 every January from our federal tax refund.

In third year the federal regulations changed. No longer would HPSP students be allowed to take out loans that exceed the cost of tuition and living expenses as calculated by their school. The HPSP money would be considered scholarship money and not income.

This put me in a quite a bind. Unless I found a new source of money, quick, we were going to have to make some dramatic changes. I did not really want to find out what it was like to live in a one bedroom something with four children and three cats and two dogs (assuming we would even be allowed to keep our pets).

But I was able to get an extra $18k pretty quickly, more Stafford money, by documenting certain expenses related to the children, and bringing the notarized signed statement to the financial aid office. The federal government allows a student to exceed maxiumum loan amts if they can prove they have certain types of extra expenses.

PM me if you would like more details.
 
If you haven't already, you should join the LMU-DCOM class of 2015 facebook group. There are a ton of incoming and current students that have families, and they would probably be more than willing to give you some advice on what they are doing etc. All of the current students are super helpful, and are full of advice. See you in July!!🙂
 
I have a question for the non-traditional DO students out there - what do you do if the financial aid package isn't enough?

I'm an incoming DO student at LMU-DCOM (in Harrogate, TN), and I have a wife and two kids. I recently received my financial aid award - after paying tuition & fees, we'll be left with about $20k a year to live on. We try to live as frugally as possible, but even so, I seriously doubt we can get by on just $20k a year.

The financial aid counselor told me she's sorry, but there's nothing she can do. 😕 I've already been awarded the maximum loan amounts (Direct Subsidized, Unsubsidized, and Grad PLUS) up to the cost of attendance for the school, and apparently you can't borrow in excess of that.

Are there any other sources of loans/scholarships? I've done quite a bit of searching, but can't seem to find anything!

Thanks in advance!

Scholarships DONT work. you can only take loans on the cost of attendance. That's what the school says they can give you MINUS the scholarships. I had a scholarship for 10K. Hooray me! Too bad my school was 75k a year... I could only borrow 65k, because I had the 10k scholarship.

Wife to work. You're in school. You don't get money from the school, from lenders, or the government to take care of your kids. That's called welfare. You're in school. If you REALLY wanted a stay-at-home barefoot-and-pregnant wife, should have waited until AFTER medical school. Got no skills? Work at costco, walmart.

Private Loans. Private lenders are all too happy to give you more money per year. These loans can be worked out so that they do not capitalize nor expect repayment until after you graduate. Thats GRADUATE, not finish residency. Interest will accrue through the duration of your schooling, and these CANNOT be consolidated into a Direct Loan from the government (Dept of Ed) when you're done. VERY Risky, but if you need it to live, then you need it to live.

20k is not enough. I'm a dude. I lift weights. I need 100g of protein. I like to drink. Cheap. Like $2-Tuesdays. I lived on financial aid. I got my meals down to about 2-3 dollars each (by cooking) plus a decent meal here and there. I was out of money. There is literally NO WAY you could POSSIBLY support an entire family on 20k. I'm pretty sure you qualify for food stamps if you are a family of four who makes 20k. I guess MAYBE if you didn't have cable, a car, and got section 8 housing...
 
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