<p>2 years ago I started school at bakersfield college and was approved for financial aid. I also started work as a waitress. I let my manager know I was going to start school soon and needed to work around my schedule but they did not want to do that so I had no choice but to quit school because i needed the job more. I got the first check from financial aid about 1 month later and irresponsible enough ended up using the money. Now i owe $1300 and its with the debt collectors. I want to go back to school and need to know if i would be able to recieve financial aid right now and do payments on my debt at the same time or if I'm just screwed.</p>
<p>You screwed yourself for the moment.</p>
<p>$1300 seems like a lot of money, but it is not insurmountable. My sister got into credit card debt to the tune of several thousand dollars and what she did was work her regular fulltime job (low pay) to pay her normal living costs and then on TOP of that, worked on weekends cleaning people’s houses. She made an extra $700 a month doing that hard work scrubbing floors and over the course of a year paid off her credit card debt.</p>
<p>You played with the 1300 and now you owe it back. Cobble together 2 or 3 jobs if needed–you can take care of that amount in well under a year if not a half year or less if you are really energetic and focused.</p>
<p>Btw - if it wasn’t clear already, you can not get more financial aid until that debt is paid off and/or you have created an agreement with them and have paid each month on time for a year. Or something along those lines. So contact them and see what you can arrange.</p>
<p>Thank you for your reply. I figured that, just wanted to make sure.</p>