Aggregate loan limits

Paying for College
1

<p>Hi!</p>

<p>After earning a BA in English and an MAT degree in teaching, I've decided that teaching English is not where I want to be after shadowing my dentist. As a result, I've re-entered school as an undergraduate bio major to do dental school prerequisites. </p>

<p>Initially, I wasn't awarded an aid package because they said I went over the aggregate for all my loans</p>

<p>However, that's not the case. I accumulated 82k in loans from both my master and bachelor degree, but 58k of that was accumulated in grad school. That leaves me with 24k of fed loan debt that I accumulated in undergrad. And too, what limit did I meet? I haven't met the 130k for graduate loans, and I surely didn't take out more than 57k of loans in grad school. </p>

<p>The aid folks at my school are looking at the total number of debt and not hand-sifting through the numbers to see how much of my undergraduate cap I've met, but as a result, they say that the 57k limit applies to just the first undergraduate degree. So, since there is no statement on the student aid.ed.gov website that refers to these aggregate limits applying to first time grads only, what do I do to ensure that I am awarded aid? I plan to pay off my debt by serving in the military. </p>

<p>Please advise! Thanks</p>

2

<p>The aid person/people with whom you spoke are wrong. Graduate debt does not count toward undergraduate debt, even if you return for a second bachelors degree. You can borrow up to $138,500 in total for all grad and undergrad loans. As long as you don’t exceed the $138,500 you can borrow up to $57,500 at the undergrad level. Here is the info in the Handbook used by aid officers: <a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/fsahandbook/attachments/1314FSAHandbookCompleteActiveIndex.pdf”>http://ifap.ed.gov/fsahandbook/attachments/1314FSAHandbookCompleteActiveIndex.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (page 3-118). If your aid office tells you otherwise, please ask to speak with a manager. Not all aid officers are as well-trained as they should be.</p>