So I checked my aid package and I saw these and im kinda confused:
Gift Aid:
Cal Grant A $12,804.00 Unconfirmed
Federal Pell Grant $4,025.00 Confirmed
UC Irvine Grant $3,282.00 Accepted
Total Gift Aid $20,111.00
Student Work-Study
President’s Work-Study $1,500.00
Total Work Study $1,500.00
Loans
Federal Direct PLUS $1,100.00 Offered
Federal Direct PLUS - Optional $1,758.00 Offered
Federal Direct Subsidized Loan to meet need $3,500.00 Offered
Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan to meet need $2,000.00 Offered
University Loan $1,200.00 Offered
Total Loans $9,558.00
Other
Estimated Undergraduate Health Insurance Waiver $1,548.00 Unconfirmed
Total Other Aid $1,548.00
Total Aid in My Aid Award $32,717.00
My EFC is $1758
Can anyone explain the loans to me? I don’t wanna take so much loan and regret it later… like which one I should accept and decline and/or request lesser amount and why?
The only way to really answer your question is if we know how much money you need. If you can pay for college without taking any loans, do that.
If you just want to know which loans are “better”, the Federal Direct Subsidized Loan is the best loan in terms of interest rate and the fact that the interest is paid by the federal government until a certain period of time after you graduate from college.
The Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan doesn’t have the same interest benefit.
The PLUS loan is probably the “worst” since you can’t take it out at all unless you are in graduate school. Your parents can take it out, but it enters repayment as soon as it is disbursed so it can be hard for low-income families to avoid getting overwhelmed by it.
The “University Loan” could be anything, really. You’d have to find out how it works from their financial aid website.
For what its worth, the PLUS loan can be deferred by the parent, stopping the loan from entering repayment upon disbursement - but this will still be a burden for a low-income family as interest will continue to accrue, especially depending on how much the family borrows.
Anyway, as far as your question – do you need the loans right now? If you do, take them. If you don’t need them right now, the unsubsidized Stafford loan will be sitting there waiting for you until sometime next summer (around May or June, I believe) so you don’t have to decide now.
I’m no expert, but I separate direct billed costs (tuition and fees, room and board) from other items that are not clearly defined like travel costs, books, personal expenses. Then look at aid that the school gives like scholarships and grants, then any federal or state grants. Figure total direct billed expenses minus total aid (don’t figure in work-study or loans in that), that is your net price. Then see how this can be afforded, with savings, summer work earnings, current income (payment plan), and lastly loans if necessary.
Loans
Federal Direct PLUS $1,100.00 Offered
Federal Direct PLUS - Optional $1,758.00 Offered
Federal Direct Subsidized Loan to meet need $3,500.00 Offered
Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan to meet need $2,000.00 Offered
University Loan $1,200.00 Offered
Total Loans $9,558.00
I am going to decline the PLUS loans because my mom is able to help me pay the $2,858 so right now I am wondering which loans I should decline too, its between Unsub and University loan, my mother say she could help me if its about $4000 out of pocket. So I don’t know if I should decline the unsub or university loan, help? thanks you guys I don’t know what will I do without this website
Before taking any loans please log onto the government website and do research on what happens after you graduate and need to begin repaying loans: http://www.direct.ed.gov/.
The unsubsidized loan can be forgiven after college depending what field of work you go into or how much income you make. However, this can take 10-25 years. The university loan might not be forgivable. You should call the financial aid office and ask about the terms of the university loan-- what is the interest rate, what happens if you are unemployed (is there a deferment process), etc… With the government loan, if you lose your job or are sick, etc… you can defer your payment for up to 3 years. This might not be an option with a university loan. These loans can really add up after four years so while it may look like $1-2k now-- it may end up significantly more if you are not careful. You can also ask that your unsubsidized loan be turned into work-study if you are able to find employment through the work-study program. I am uncertain if it is the same for the university loan.
Ok so it cost $32,717-$20,111(Gift aid)-1500 (work study)=11,106 you need to pay without any loans.
If you take the Federal loans=5500(sub & unsub) that brings your total down to $5606 cash you need to come up with.
Personally I’d not take any other loans besides the Federal loans if you could help it. Now I’m not quite sure what the $1548 Health insurabce waver is? If that is free money that can be subtracted from the $5606-1548=$4,058.
If your mom can give you 4k cash, then the answer is you only need to take the Federal Loans
so today is the discover uci day and I went into the ofas and talk to one of the faculties.
He said that my total aid which is the $20,111 + the $1548 = $21,659 is use to subtract the tuition first and the tuition is $15634.47 so I have about $6025 leftover.
the leftover is then use to pay my housing and for example im choosing the cheapest one with meal plan ($11,648), so the out of pocket would be $11648 - $6025 = $5623. If I were to take the sub loan $3500 then my mom would have to pay $2123 because she doesn’t want to take loan.
Should the work study factor in as the aid, cuz I forgot to asked him (stupid me), if so then the out of pocket would be much lower and I could work my ass off this summer and not take any loans, but then I rmb there are other fees such as the books and supplies so maybe I would take some loan but not the full amount of $3500?
he also said i could repay the loan when im still in school so this is good news because i dont want to repay the loan after i graduate.
should I call ofas tmr just to make sure about the work study and/or something else? thank you guys sooo much!
The work study is not included in the grant award because it is not a grant - you have to work for it. Also remember that you’ll get half of this in the fall, half in the spring, so you’ll only need half of your contribution in the fall too. You can earn money this summer, use that to pay the fall fees, do work study in the fall and use that to pay the spring fees.
Yes the work study money you won’t have up front. You have to find a job and work maybe 10 hrs a week and then you get a paycheck. Usually students will pay their personal expenses like shampoo, laundry, eating out, etc with that. If you have a work study award of $1500 per school year, that would give you about $100 a week, if you spend less you could save some for books for next semester.
Usually the first bill will be due in July/Aug. The school will charge half of tuition, regular fees and some one-time fees, and half of room and board. Then they will apply half of scholarship or grants.
So for example they would charge $7500 for tuition, $5,500 for r&b, that’s $13,000
Subtract 1/2 of aid, $10,000 so that would leave $3,000 for that semester.
If you have summer savings and mom can pay $2,000 you might not need to take a loan.
But also consider expenses for books, travel, dorm supplies to get you started.
Was the discover day worth going to? Can you actually tour the schools/dorms?? Or is it just a bunch of the student organizations handing out flyers? thanks
@TerryB15 the discover day is worth it because its is much smaller than the open house that will be in April 18 so you get to have a one-on-one talk with FA advisors, faculties and its a lot faster. There are booths in the student center building and there are presentations too. Annd they gave out breakfast for you XD there are some frats/sors and clubs when the presentations are finish, and they have tours too for the campus and the dorms
@TerryB15 yeah there is another one on April 8 and yeah the CHP also has theirs on April 1st at 3pm (i think its around that time) but on April 1st there was a Discover Day starts at 8am and when I was there, the CHP has their at around when the Discover Day was done
