<p>I've posted a couple of times before in reference to my financial difficulties, why I am not willing to go to community college, and asking for help in gaining the proper capital to attend college. Many moons later, I have decided on my university -- DePauw, because they gave me the best aid of any -- and am excited that I get to go to college!</p>
<p>Except that I learned earlier this week that my parents have too poor of credit to co-sign any outside loans with me. We're out of touch with the majority of the family, and those that we do talk to are not willing to help my father or me. My parents will likely be denied the PLUS loan, which gives me $4,000 more in Stafford loans, but that still leaves me with $12,000 to come up with (roughly). Can someone tell me exactly how Stafford and Perkins loans work (eg, do they need a cosigner?) and point me in the right direction towards finding any more money? Even though I'm from New York, is there any way I can get grants in Indiana?</p>
<p>I've called and emailed finaid and gotten no response; I will again tomorrow, but the prospect looks bleak. I really, really, really do not want to take a gap year or go to community college for my own reasons, but I will take the gap year if necessary.</p>
<p>Maybe that makes me a terrible person, but I’ve worked my butt off so hard for the past four years not to have to go to community college and not have the college experience I’ve worked for. I’ll go if I really have to…</p>
<p>i say wait a little bit more before you hear from their office before panicking. it’s a holiday today, after all. perhaps they’re closed. best of luck at making it work.</p>
<p>You need to think ahead. You’re only thinking about the $12,000 needed for your first year. Then what? You’re short again for your 2nd year. The debt piles on and on plus interest. Don’t put yourself in a situation where your undergraduate education is going to put you into such severe debt. The only thing that a gap year will do is put off the debt and education for a year. Instead, go to community college. Get your general education requirements out of the way for cheap. Take your general ed. requirements and work part time. Pay off the community college bill in full and put away any extra money. Ace the classes. After 2 years (it will go by faster than you think), transfer into your 1st choice college.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not sure how much going to community college would help – I have so many credits stacked up already that I’m almost done with freshman year, so I’d only need less than a year of gen-eds. Maybe I can try that, but I really, really want the freshman experience, you know? I do need some more time to hear back, but I’m trying to find alternatives. I want that four-year experience so, so badly, and I almost had it, and then it disappeared, and I’m trying to take action to make sure it doesn’t slip from my grasp before settling for community college.</p>
<p>“I want that four-year experience so, so badly”'</p>
<p>Believe me, we understand.</p>
<p>Sometimes a 4-year school just isn’t possible because of money. If you do end up at the community college, chances are you will meet a number of students very much like yourself: academically prepared for a 4-year place, but without enough money to pay for it. New York State has a number of excellent community colleges, some with on-campus residences. If part of the “freshman year experience” that you want is getting to live away from home, you should check those schools out.</p>
<p>To live on campus at a CC will not be appreciably more than a SUNY - my understanding is that Oswego and Fredonia still have spots. See your GC today. If you can afford to live at a CC, you can afford to live at a SUNY 4 yr school.</p>
<p>I suspect that Depauw’s finaid brought you to about the same cost as a SUNY (about 20K, including living) - if so, you ARE going to have to live at home and go to CC, unless there is a SUNY (or CUNY) within commuting distance. There will be many people in your boat this year. Register early.</p>
<p>While I understand that you really want the freshmen experience, I’m with the others who are telling you your current plan makes no sense.</p>
<p>You will have a large Stafford, Perkins AND Borrow $12K more? It’s a blessing in disguise that your parent’s can’t co sign. These loans and COA will go up every year. You will owe close to six figures if you do this for four years, about 5 times the national average.</p>
<p>Don’t you also want to have a post college adult life? You are headed for crippling debt with the current plan. you won’t be able to buy a house or a decent car. You need to apply some long term thinking here. You really don’t want to have 20 tough years paying back loans for the freshmen experience.</p>
<p>Stafford loans do not require a co-signer and you are eligible for them no matter how bad your credit is, unless you have defaulted on a previous Stafford loan (which if you are a current college student is impossible) and a few other situations that probably also don’t apply to you. The majority of them will be unsubsidized, which means that the interest will accumulate while you are in school and capitalize when you graduate. Perkins loans you can only get when you are low-income enough to qualify for them.</p>
<p>A lot of the parents giving you advice are right, though. College is very expensive, and while it seems like a good idea to take out massive loans to go to a school that you are excited about at 18, when you are 22 with a job that makes you $50,000 or less a year and have loan payments per month in the thousands, it doesn’t seem like such a good idea. It is very, very hard for 18-year-olds to have the sort of foresight to realize this (you’re just excited about DePauw, who cares about the rest, right?) but honestly, think about what hmom5 is saying.</p>
<p>If you do have to take a year, I advise you <em>not</em> to take a gap year unless you have a plan of something to do with it (like joining Americorps or something). Instead, take some classes at a community college. No one is too good for community college, and you may be surprised – many of the students at community colleges are driven, intelligent students who are or were high achievers just like you and just needed to save money, or didn’t go to college straight out of high school. You will also have a lot of mature and driven non-traditional students - like my mother, who brings a wealth of 10 years of nursing experience to her nursing classes, or my brother, who works full time at an electrical company, or my father, who worked for 20+ years in transit and is business-savvy even without a business administration.</p>
<p>To answer your original question, Stafford loans do not require a cosigner. Assuming you will enter as a sophomore, you would be eligible to borrow $6500 in Stafford loans (sub & unsub total - $5500 if you enter as a freshman, but you can get the extra $1000 2nd semester if you become a sophomore after 1st semester). If your parents are turned down for PLUS, you would be eligible to borrow another $4000 for the year. Perkins does not require a cosigner, either; the school determines how much they can award you, since it’s a limited pool of funds to be spread among the lowest EFC students.</p>
<p>If you still have a gap of $12,000 to make up after all of these loans, you definitely need to reconsider. Yes, DePauw is an awesome school. However, the debt you are considering is staggering. Have you checked to see what your repayment would be? </p>
<p>I know that you have worked hard & want more for yourself. Saddling yourself with an almost insurmountable debt load is not wise, though.</p>
<p>Kelsmom, I don’t think you can borrow the extra $1,000 if you become a sophomore after the first semester. Stafford loan limits aren’t determined by credits so much as years; if the OP applies as a first-time freshman even if she has 30 credits she’ll still be eligible for the first-year limits. I definitely became a “sophomore” by credits after my first semester (I came in with 16 and earned 17 during my first semester) and I didn’t get any extra money.</p>
<p>Okay…so you’re “too good” for SUNY universities and for CC’s, and apparently for other schools in your home state that gave you generous merit aid, given your stats, and where you would have been eligible for considerable state aid. Not to be snarky, but there’s an old saying that “beggars can’t be choosers”. </p>
<p>Yes, you may have worked your butt off to make up for a year you performed poorly, but it still didn’t bring your gpa to a 90, and it doesn’t mean you “deserve” your dream school any more than kids who worked their butts off all 4 years and can’t go because they can’t afford it. If they can be mature enough to realize that financial constraints ARE a crucial factor in most adult decisions, I believe you can get there too. </p>
<p>It’s extremely foolish to borrow for an education you would have gotten practically for free at any SUNY. At least choose a NY school where you can use the $4K/year or so of TAP and the NY HELPs loan program. The alternative, if you can actually find a way to overborrow to the extent you need, is to spend a lifetime working your butt of to repay student loans that your 17 year old self thought were necessary.</p>
<p>my daughter also was accepted to Depauw, but we’re low income
and the we felt the amount of gapping was too much. She liked
Depauw very much but we were forced to decline their offer. she
was rejected at PennState (instate) and our other state colleges
were out of our reach. She was accepted at another school that
she didn’t really want to go to, but the aid was good. So that
was it. There were really no other alternatives. Which school gave
you the best aid - is most affordable?</p>
<p>Juillet, yes, you can get the increase when your status changes. You have to request the increase - you most likely aren’t going to get a revised award notice.</p>
<p>^^^I was told the same at my school - that I can apply for the increase to Sophomore Stafford for next spring when my status changes to sophomore. But I do have to go in and apply - they will not do it automatically.</p>
<p>Ditto yes on the Stafford change from fall semester to spring semester. It happened to my son. He was 1 credit hour short at the end of freshman year to be a sophomore so his fall year 2 Stafford was at freshman level, his spring year 2 at sophomore level. He requested the increase and it happened.</p>
<p>My daughter was also accepted to DePauw and she really wanted to go there. She actually did get a good financial aid package, but it was dependent on us having two children in college. Unfortunately, my older daughter failed to complete high school, and would not be able to go to her vo tech college. So in the end my younger daughter opted to go to a state college rather than take on too much debt. It is a too bad, I was very impressed with DePauw. I think in general the tutition of all colleges seem to be getting way out of hand. I wish colleges would put more into keeping the tutition.</p>
<p>Oh snap, I had no idea Good thing I didn’t know that, because I didn’t need the extra money and I already borrowed a lot more than I actually needed to borrow in undergrad.</p>
<p>'“It’s extremely foolish to borrow for an education you would have gotten practically for free at any SUNY. At least choose a NY school where you can use the $4K/year or so of TAP and the NY HELPs loan program. The alternative, if you can actually find a way to overborrow to the extent you need, is to spend a lifetime working your butt of to repay student loans that your 17 year old self thought were necessary.”</p>
<p>I beg to differ. It wasn’t “practically free” anywhere; SUNYs hardly gave me any aid at all, and DePauw gave me the best package.</p>
Good thing I didn’t know that, because I didn’t need the extra money and I already borrowed a lot more than I actually needed to borrow in undergrad.</p>