My parents had money for 4 years of college saved for me. Unfortunately for me, I still do not have enough credits to graduate and my parents no longer are helping me with college. I applied for FAFSA and asked my school what the status of my FAFSA was. They said since my EFC is too high, I dont qualify for loans or grants. Which sucks. How does someone not even qualify for loans? I have no idea what to do now. I asked my parents if we could sign up for a student loan from a credit card company but they refuse to cosign with me because they do not think I will be able to pay back the loan. I know I screwed myself here cause I couldve graduated in the 4 years I had but any suggestions?
Do you do your advance planning with a stop watch???
Of course you should have seen this coming. Get a job. Join the real world. You can work for the money you need to finish college.
How many more credits do you need? Is it one more class, several classes? Working and going to school is tough but can be done.
Agree with the above.
Have you taken out any of the federal direct student loans already? If so, how much?
Wow guys, that’s pretty harsh. Sure, OP screwed up, but they want to finish up.
OP, what is your major? How many more credits do you need in your major? Do you have any other requirements you need to fulfill? How many credits short are you?
Oof… I need several classes. Yeah working is what Ill have to do. It just sucks that I wont graduate when I want but oh well i guess
I don’t understand how I can take out any type of student loan if my school said I dont qualify.
That is okay. If I didnt mess around the first two years, I wouldn’t be in this mess ? Thank you
I am a Computer science major and I need two more semesters worth of credits. No other requirements
If you are a US citizen or legal permanent resident alien, or if you fall into certain other immigration categories such as asylee, you can file the FAFSA and then have access to the standard federal student loans. If you have junior or senior status, you can borrow $7,500 each year.
However, qualifying for student loans can also be affected by SAP (Satisfactory Academic Progress). If you have failed or dropped too many classes, your access to federal aid can be cut off. So do have a conversation with the financial aid office about that to find out if that is why you were told you couldn’t borrow a student loan.
How much money do you need to finish up your degree?
Can you get a job now with the computer skills that you have? That way you could work while you study to help cover your costs. Even better if you can land a job at your university that comes with tuition benefits that pay for a class or two each semester.
See if you can get a co-op now for the next semester or two. They will pay you plus give you a skill set. You can use that money to pay for college. For CS you do get paid well.
If you need that many credits to finish, then I might guess that your GPA isn’t so great. Know that many large companies require a minimum GPA of 3.0. But they get so many applicants that the effective minimum GPA can be much higher.
So, in your case, getting a job might actually help you in the long run. It won’t a glamor job and will probably be with a smaller company that doesn’t have the 3.0 GPA requirement. But will give you a track record that can help offset my assumed lower GPA.
It won’t be easy, but it is doable. I’ve seen it done before.
Good luck to you.
I may have been harsh in my original comment, but it seemed that you needed something to kick start you to devolping a real plan forward.
If your EFC is $70K you are likely attending one of a handful of extra-expensive schools. Cost-control choices include:
= transferring to one of your in-state unis (the most expensive ones will still be half that; many a quarter of that price)- depending on your state & GPA that may be harder- or easier
= sit down with your advisor and figure out which of the classes you have left to take must be done at your current university. There are usually rules about which and how many classes you can take elsewhere. but if it is important to you to keep the expensive school, see if you can get some of the credits at your local CC- much cheaper
= @ $70K residential housing is included. You can look for less expensive housing solutions, or see about subsidized housing. For example, RAs (Residential Advisors) typically get housing as part of their package.
@collegemom3717 this student is in his last year. Transferring to another school probably isn’t going to work. Most colleges want all upper level courses in the major completed at their college when awarding a degree.
Also, he says his EFC is $70,000, not that the cost to attend his college is $70,000.
How old are you?
To @iamyiyaj
- How many years have you been on college?
- How much money do you need to finish your degree at the college you are currently attending?
- What is your GPA?
- Have you taken any of the Direct Loans? If so, how much.
I have to say, the Thumper family deal was we would pay for four years of undergraduate school, and that was it. Like your family, we were full pay. We expected our kids to get grades that would allow them to graduate in four years. We didn’t pay for anything like summer classes (and one of our kids took summer classes on their own dime to complete a second major).
If your parents have been spending a lot of money per year for you to attend college, they have been very very generous, and you are fortunate.
I agree…talk to your college. See if co-op positions are even being offered now. Some colleges are…and some are not. Maybe take a one year leave of absence and get ANY job and save (this assumes you can live at no cost at your parent home).
If you look on Indeed there are internships etc for the fall. For CS this should not be that difficult. Again like Co-ops these are paid positions for college
Many CS kids get offered jobs while at them. Work out something that when you finish you will work there.( You actually have one or the easier majors to make this happen (not saying that it will be easy)
Talk to your school and career center now. You don’t pay tuition as long as you have an internship /co-op. Either do a year of them and make sure you have enough money to finish your 2 semesters or go work one then go to school for one and repeat. Actually many colleges programs are set up this way so you get experience working and a connection with a company. Don’t know where you live but maybe living at home while doing this if you don’t have to pay rent etc would be the best way to save as much money as you can.
Also there are some possible combinations like working and taking one class part time. Maybe there is an online class that would count. Everything might be online anyway next fall /year so this might actually work out for you.
Make it happen now!
Asking…how old is the OP! Too late to edit above post!
This is a good idea.
But since it’s late to find a co-op, perhaps ask your school for a leave of absence for a semester or a year. But still try to find a job that will help you pay for college. Have you done any internships? If not, why not?
How much does your school cost? Are they allowing students to take classes online this year? If so, can you afford to do that if you borrow $7500 for the school year and work to pay the difference?
Fill out FAFSA and get that $7500. Too bad you didn’t ask earlier because we could have told you to file FAFSA for the past year to get that 7500. The total 15k may have made the difference for this coming year.
It sounds like your parents are done, right? If you had a decent GPA and looked employable, they would loan you that last year themselves. Is there any reason that you look both unlikely to graduate with a CS degree and unemployable? Really, an extra year usually isn’t a deal breaker. There must be more details we are missing.
Exactly how many courses and credits do you need to get a degree from your school? Can you take any of them elsewhere, like at a cheaper state school, or community college? Where are you living?
Though many families have a “4 and Done” policy, what does one do if the student has several courses that HAVE to be taken at the college which is not local to parents’ home to graduate? Just “too bad, so sad”, not getting a degree when that close, and going anywhere else means 2 full years of courses and residency at another school to get a degree from anywhere? Depending on how much more time
and credits needed, and if parents can afford it, many parents will fund the extra time if the cost and time to continue with Original U is less than starting over as a transfer student at Another school.
If there is no way to get the funds to finish up at Original U, it’s time to job hunt and start looking at local public options that may take your credits and let you graduate in the next two years or more. You will join the ranks of the majority of college students in this country, commuting to college part time and working at least part time
If you pursue places like indeed I remember seeing coop /internship options for CS just recently. I bet his school has options not 100 % filled. Also many of these went online or maybe will be online for the fall. Doesn’t hurt to check. Takes like 10 minutes. Yep, there are fall coops. Just checked talking to my phone. Just looked at a few on Indeed. Not sure his access to Handshake and the like and maybe reach out to professors for advice. Many have connections.
Contact the career center and see if you’d qualify for a co-op in the Spring.
For right now and throughout the Fall: find a job if you don’t have one.
With a CS major: apply for all IT and technical/CS-related and CS-adjacent jobs. On campus, near campus, etc.
(Are you at home, on campus, off campus right now? When in college?)
You may have to go to school part-time, taking 2-3 classes while working part-time.
What’s your GPA?
What classes do you still need to complete?
Have you ever had an internship? A part-time job?
I’m guessing you’re attending a well-known college and since you’re just 25-30 credits away from graduating, do your utmost to graduate from there, even if it takes you longer. Good colleges usually have topnotch career centers: make use of yours immediately and don’t let up till you have a resume and cover letter in tiptop shape + interviewing skills + places where you can work or co-op, either on campus or near campus in the Fall, and right now for the summer. It might be easier if you look for a Summer+Fall job, since many jobs will prefer someone who doesn’t decamp in two months.
Contact the financial aid office and ask to sign up for Federal Loans. You need to complete FAFSA - you don’t qualify for grants but you do qualify for $7,500 in federal loans. It should help you pay for your part time classes while your salary from a job + savings from the summer should help you pay for rent/food/miscellaneous.
@cptofthehouse we would not have paid for an additional semester or year of classes. Our funding was for four years and that is all. If our kids had not been on a trajectory to graduate in four years, we would have known long before the last year.
We paid a lot of money for these kids to pass their courses and get done. We did not pay that money for them to screw around for a year or two.
Both of our kids knew they would be enrolling in the local public CC or university if their grades weren’t up to snuff.