<p>I’m by no means an expert but in my experience it can’t hurt to ask for more money - the worst thing they can do is say no. They aren’t going to get insulted and lower your package or anything - it’s just part of the process. We asked for more grant money for my son at his top choice school his freshman year and they found us another $1500 - he was trying to decide between that school and our state flagship and that was the icing on the cake for us.</p>
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<p>If you decide not to take all those loans, keep the Perkins and drop the unsub Direct loan. The Perkins is as good or maybe better than the subsidized Stafford.</p>
<p>I am curious about co-op too. Engineers, comp-sci kids etc all seem to do very well $-wise at NEU on co-ops. I wonder how much of this $ is taken up by housing and other expenses? I suppose it depends where you co-op.</p>
<p>What do you guys mean by turn down / drop the loan? Like tell Northeastern that I don’t want those?</p>
<p>You don’t “have” to take any or all of the loans that are offered to you. Each semester you will be presented with a bill and your financial aid statement, and you will have to accept your financial aid and then pay the difference between your aid and the bill. Each piece of the financial aid pie is presented as a separate line item that you accept or not. Nobody in their right mind does anything but accept grants, but the loans you can turn down. Of course you will have to find the money somewhere else, and in a timely fashion. </p>
<p>Most schools let you stretch your payments out over 10 months - they all have different arrangements for that, you should check with Northeastern, or any other schools you are interested in. Regardless, if you are earning decent money in a co-op job you could conceivably make enough to selectively turn down some loans during your student career, paying that money as you go instead, and graduate with that much less student debt.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies people. Anyways I guess I’ll wait then for the other offers. Just got accepted to Bing but they don’t release the FA stuff until March. I wish all schools released it with the decision like NEU :P</p>
<p>Congratulations. You already have some goodies on the table.</p>