have 4 courses to tackle
Do you need two courses or 4 courses to finish your prerequisites and get this other degree?
Some nursing programs require prerequisites to be completed within a certain time frame (i.e. 5 years for sciences). Will postponing school for 1.5 years still enable you to use your prerequisites? Will you be motivated to go to a 4 year school after 1.5 years? Is there a reason you won’t look into other sources of funding to go to a 4 year nursing program in Fall 2022?
Chemistry and biology have a 10-year life span I double-checked.
No loans, don’t want any debt for a BS degree but higher degrees may be loans.
How many more prerequisites do you need to take to apply to nursing schools? How many more semesters of Pell eligibility do you have?
Spring 2022 will be my 8th semester.
Since I used up 5 semesters for my AGS degree.
I have to take the final 4 courses, I can take two biologies together and the final 2 in summer 2022 and be done.
Why don’t you take all 4 courses at once? Or pay for them out of pocket, so that you have 5 semesters of Pell eligibility? Most upper division nursing programs are 2 years, and it’s not a bad idea to have an extra semesters of funding as a cushion in case you need to repeat a course, fulfill credit requirements for the 4-year school, etc.
Trust me I won’t repeat courses or fail them, failing is not an option, I’m super paranoid about having a failing grade on a transcript.
Same for Fall 21 had to pass all 5 courses and no excuses.
Some schools will require you to take a certain amount of credits at their institutions, so it isn’t a bad idea to have more eligibility with a Pell grant. Again, why can’t you take all 4 courses in the spring? You will need at least 4 semesters for a nursing program, so taking two more semesters at the community college doesn’t make sense financially.
Biology has to be passed in a sequential manner, you can’t take human structure and function 1 without passing biology 1. All these courses have pre-reqs that need to be met 
What classes do you still have left to take? Can you pay for these classes out of pocket so you don’t use up your Pell eligibility?
@Livvyxoxo: Clear as mud.
(Flashed on:
“Who’s on First
What’s on Second
I don’t know’s on Third”.)
Interesting Abbott and Costello quote.
I have to resubmit my FAFSA app for the UNI and I’ll just use the Pell I have for spring 22 and summer 22. Get that over with
For the university, I’ll pay for the 3 semesters out of pocket.
How?
This is not true.
First, you will have a college degree, which opens the door to a wide variety of jobs & careers. There are many jobs which require a college degree just to be considered, but the major doesn’t matter.
Second, there is not one thing called “nursing” which you either like or don’t like. Nurses work in a wide variety of jobs. At one end of the spectrum is the traditional nurse whom we meet in a hospital. My daughter does that and she only works 13 days a month because shifts are 12 hours per day. Close to that are nurses in doctors offices, but there lifestyle is very different because they work 8 hours per day/ 22 days per month. Then there are nurses who work in schools, rehab centers, nursing homes, businesses, etc. At the other end of the spectrum are nurses who do not work in the traditional nursing jobs at all. They might work for insurance companies, in sales, or as pharmaceutical company reps. All of these jobs and others like them require a background in science and health care, which nurses have. A friend of mine has her PhD in nursing and she works as a corporate rep, making a very high salary. The PhD is only a recent addition to her credentials. She’s been doing the job with her BSN/RN for a long time.
“Failure isn’t an option” is a great movie tagline. It rarely translates into real life. People who are successful in meeting their goals start with a solid plan and change course as needed along the way. You seem to have some difficulty accepting things that aren’t the way you think they should be. If you want a bachor’s degree you’re going to have to be flexible.
While your overall plan (becoming a nurse) is good, there are several areas of your plan that could be strengthened:
If you want to be a nurse, taking engineering courses won’t help you. Employers won’t be looking for a broad range of interests in their applicants. They want depth (training and experience) relevant to their field. Start getting some experience in the healthcare field now to strengthen both your college and work applications.
Having no/minimal work experience is a huge negative in the job market. If you can’t make it past the initial prescreen (often done by a computer) you won’t have an opportunity to try to explain it away in an interview. If you do manage to land an interview at ~32 (or however old you’ll be when you graduate), you’ll have a tough time convincing a hiring manager that you’re a hard worker when you haven’t held a job in over a decade. Start adding some work experience to your resume.
Working part-time won’t cover university tuition, fees, and books. Look up the costs of the closest university that offers a BSN. Add up the total costs for a semester – tuition, fees, books, health insurance, food, transportation (registration, insurance, and gas if it involves a car) – and divide it by 5. That’s what you would owe every month. At UIC direct costs (tuition, fees, and health insurance) are $7769/semester. So without books, food, or transportation expenses your out-of-pocket costs are already $1554/month. Get a job now and see how many hours you need to work to earn that much.
I don’t see any contingency plans in your timeline. I don’t know how you’re managing living expenses now without a job. If your parents are willing/able to support you, that’s great. But parents don’t live forever in the best of times, and we’re in the middle of a pandemic. If you had to fully support yourself tomorrow with your current education/work experience, could you do it? You need a strong backup plan in case something changes. Having a part-time job that you could switch to full-time if needed would help. Building up enough savings to cover at least 6 months of expenses is also a good plan.
Use your resources wisely. I understand wanting to use every dime of your Pell. But since it looks like you won’t have enough to finish the BSN then stop using it for the AES degree. Using it up on courses not relevant to the BSN is like taking the rent money and using it on other things while assuming you’ll be able to come up with the money somewhere else at the end of the month. That rarely works out. Pell is real money. Budget it so it will fully pay for the nursing degree.
I’d suggest taking a gap semester in the spring. You can save your Pell and it will give you time to apply to BSN schools. Get a full-time job and create a plan that will get you where you want to be.
Why would you use up two more semesters at CC when you will have at least 4 semesters in a nursing program? Paying out of pocket at a CC for your remaining prerequisites will be much cheaper then paying out of pocket at a 4 year school. I will ask again, what classes exactly do you need to take to apply to nursing school?
@austinmshauri i believe the OP was working as a manager of a retail store, but quit to go back to school. So they have some work experience, but not any in the healthcare field. The only issue with taking a gap semester is it seems like OP doesn’t have all the prerequisites necessary to apply to nursing school, but I am unclear why they can’t pay for the remaining prerequisites out of pocket and save their Pell grant.
@aunt_bea My grandfather loves that skit! Thank you for the memory and smile this morning.
OP; can you please try to answer the questions that I and other posters have asked you? We all want to help, but it is difficult without all of the information.
How will you do that (pay for 3 university semesters out-of-pocket) if you’re Pell-eligible and don’t want to work a job?
BTW, your story is constantly changing.
OP— you seem to have a lot of data gathered and know a lot of details about your plans.
Can you share the cost per unit (or semester) at your CC vs the cost per unit (or semester) at your intended university?
Flashing on Who’s on first routine again!
Every single nurse I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with, in my 30+ years of practice, whether in a hospital, school, clinic, or private practice has had excellent communication skills. One of the best and common qualities is/was their ability to convey complicated information in a succinct, effective and caring manner.
Your ability to convey your thoughts is convoluted, and confusing. This does not bode well for your future in any occupation. Please reread why everyone is confused:
Edited to add: when working with patients, I had malpractice insurance. I made sure my documentation flowed and followed the right sequence of events.
There is no rhyme or reason in you rationale with anything:
funding,
coursework,
future work schedule.