<p>exactly tomo88. thats why i said that $30000 was the "maximum" you could earn. And like i said, anything above $50000 in loan would become a huge burden after graduation.</p>
<p>There is no particularly good reason to save your OPT for after graduation because after that 12 months you will have to wait another few months to get a working visa, which means you will not be able to work for several months and will most likely lose your job - or you wouldn't get a job in the first place if your employer knew. I can elaborate more on this at a later but I do not have a lot of time right now.</p>
<p>Another way to save money is to graduate early. Can you take a few AP exams? Do you get some credit for your high school work? Is taking a course overload each semester an option? If you could graduate in 3 or 3.5 years finances would not be that big of an issue for you (actually, if you could graduate in 3.5 years working visas would not be an issue either, but more about that at another time).</p>
<p>^just wondering doesn't some schools make u study for four years? i read on the Bucknell site that students must study for four years no matter what.</p>
<p>There may well be a few exceptions but most colleges I am aware of allow students to graduate early once they have accumulated enough credits. </p>
<p>As promised, more about working visas in case someone's interested:</p>
<p>You have to have at least a Bachelor's degree by the time a company petitions for your H1B. Currently the number of applications exceeds the annual cap (65,000 visas?) very early in the application cycle (early April) which is usually before you get your Bachelor's degree in late April or May. That means that you cannot apply for a H1B in the year that you graduate. </p>
<p>You may think that you could bridge the time between graduation and the next H1B application cycle in the following year with OPT but that isn't that easy either. The H1B that you would get the following year wouldn't be valid until October that year, but your OPT runs out sometime between May and July (depending on when you start working after graduation - you have to start within a certain number of days after graduation though). That means that you will not be allowed to work between July and October. How many companies would be fine with that?</p>
<p>If you were to graduate at the end of the fall semester in December (not too common but possible at many colleges), you can work for a year on OPT and in the meantime apply for a H1B in April and start working with the H1B in October - so you could actually use some time of your OPT before graduation to do internships during the summer.</p>
<p>Of course there is always the possibility that immigration laws change, but that is not something I would count on.</p>
<p>Working campus is definitely a good way to help your finances; you can make about $ 600 a month.
Trading stocks or forex is reasonable only if you are good at these things. I know guys who make, let's say a decent income, but they really know what they do. As for donating plasma or sperm, do it if you want it. You can also make some money online- by taking surveys or clicking ads, but it takes time. I don't really like this way since it's very time consuming. However, I found software which autoclicks a certain site- Bux.to</a> | .view .click .make money , and it is not a scam.
J And if you want to help my college financing, please register as my referrals-<a href="http://bux.to/?r=tromsyo">http://bux.to/?r=tromsyo</a>. I know it's kind of insolent to do such things here, but if anyone thinks that he can use it to make some cash I will send him the software.</p>
<p>Earning $600 a month with on-campus work might be overly optimistic, depending on the pay rate at your college. At my college we get $7 an hour, and we only get to keep $5-$6 of them after taxes. For $6 an hour you would have to work 25 hours a week (more than you are allowed on OPT) to make $600. In addition, my colleges cuts us off at $2000 - we are not allowed to earn more on campus because the number of on-campus jobs is limited and all students should have the chance to work a few hours a week. </p>
<p>But I heard that some college hire undergraduate TAs for $30 an hour, and in that case $600+ a month is not unreasonable.</p>
<p>Though it's everyone's personal decision, I wouldn't be comfortable donating plasma. I don't mind donating full blood because the equipment is used one time only and then discarded. But when you donate plasma, your blood goes into a machine that filters out the plasma and back into your body - through the same pipes that hundreds or thousands of other people's blood went through. Plus, it doesn't even pay that well. The closest institution here that buys plasma pays $18 per donation. But including travel time, a donation would take about 3 hours. I rather spend those 3 hours earning $18 with a regular job.</p>
<p>b@rium you are so helpful. </p>
<p>Now answer my question I asked you on the other thread ^_^</p>
<p>Loans.....I dont have any loans right now and my financial aid package meets my full-need. However, If I am to apply for a loan ( Well, not much around 4 k per year), where do I get it from? the college itself?? What are the interest rates like?</p>
<p>
[quote]
where do I get it from? the college itself?? What are the interest rates like?
[/quote]
You would have to ask your college about that. Some colleges do award institutional funds as loans, others don't.</p>
<p>You should also ask your college if the loans in the financial aid package increase each year. At most colleges they do.</p>
<p>b@r!um; isn't there a new OPT cap gap policy in place which means that if you have applied for an H1b and your Opt status expires, it will be extended till you are either rejected or accepted for the change in visa status. so practically you just have to ensure that your Opt is in place till the April after graduation</p>
<p>You are right. But if you look at the date of the post where I was talking about OPT, you will notice that that was before the new interim rule was announced. But thanks for pointing that out!</p>
<p>Btw, the new OPT rule is just an <em>interim</em> rule and it has not even gone into effect yet.</p>
<p>Yeah i was just confirming because I think you are quite knowledgeable about this whole thing. I don't know about it being just an interim rule and not being in effect. Do you mean the policy could be withdrawn? And when is it suppose to come into effect?</p>
<p>It will go into effect as soon as it is published in some official government paper, which has (to my knowledge) not happened yet.</p>
<p>What happens to loans that internationals take if they want to transfer,,,,,,,,I mean of course they won't be waived or so, but then do colleges say like you can't transfer until your loans are cleared? Do you require a co-signer to take loans from college??</p>
<p>It depends on the terms of your particular loan, but usually college-administered loans do not require a co-signer (that's the reason for offering them in the first place) and it is unlikely that you would have to repay all your loans before you can transfer.</p>
<p>tomo88,</p>
<p>Can you please explain what you mean by using up OPT time as a result of using CPT? I'm astounded nobody has called you out on this, save for barium, who only advised not to save on OPT due to the 12 month limit.</p>
<p>Look at this the Citizen and Immigration Services website:
ProPublish</a> Reference</p>
<p>CPT - during school, you may engage up to and not exceeding 12 months of employment related to your course of study, through internships, working in school or other arrangements.</p>
<p>As long as you keep to the 12 month limit, you will NOT AFFECT ELIGIBILITY to work using OPT in other way.</p>
<p>OPT - can be used during school, but due to the existence of CPT, why do so? It is also stated explicitly that OPT can be used after completion of a course of study, for up to a maximum of 12 months. The approval process for CPT is so much faster, and even though OPT may not be the best way to get employment right after college, it still opens doors for a fairly substantial amount of employment. Of course, I'm also hoping that this new 'interim' OPT rule gets implemented!</p>
<p>There is no way you can 'save' OPT.</p>
<p>Even when you type in 'CPT' in Google, all the colleges websites will tell you the same thing. Try it and see.</p>
<p>Kindly get your facts right.</p>
<p>been a long time since I last went on CC. yes, my bad I realized I made a mistake. I guess it shows that alot of people here don't really know how CPT/OPT works then!</p>
<p>As long as you get a job.. will most companies help you get a H1b? What kind of companies does?</p>
<p>haha, come work in Canada. we get 3 years to work freely :p</p>
<p>Make as much money as you can during your 1st and 2nd year, before the US $ crashes. I wonder how much longer they can keep their economy going :S</p>