<p>Since your work study will be paying for your “personal expenses”, HOW will you pay the $355 per month? Work study isn’t enough to pay for both. Work study is ONLY $1700 TOTAL…over a 9 month period, that is ONLY about $180 a MONTH…and all of that will be for personal expenses. SO, where will you get the $355 a month from (plus any leftover uncovered costs)???</p>
<p>You have to take the loans. you have no choice at this point.</p>
<p>You seem to be “triple counting” how you’ll be spending your work study earnings… You think you can: pay for personal expenses, plane tix home, AND $355 a month payments…when you’re only earning $180 a month!</p>
<p>Unless the 1700 WS is “per semester” (which would be an unusually high amount), it is for the whole school year…you may be miscounting that.</p>
<p>I thought the $355 dollars a month included WS and Student Contribution (1850 [S. Contribution] + 1700 [WS]/ 10 month payment plan= $355 dollars a month. I was hoping that after my WS runs out I could get a part-time job on campus. . .</p>
<p>Mom2, I would be very surprised if this students work study award was not intended to be used to cover her student contribution. This is done at MANY generous schools for low income students so they will have help in meeting that student contribution.</p>
<p>OP…give the college a call and find out exactly what you will owe to the school on your school bill after your financial aid has been applied. You may find the amount to be very little, but you need to ASK. </p>
<p>Then take a stafford loan ONLY in the amount you actually need.</p>
<p>I might be unintentionally confusing you guys by not posting my Award. I’ll find the document and post the aid I was given because I didn’t think loans were needed until now. Just give me a minute to find it.</p>
<p>Also post the costs to attend your college…room, board, tuition, fees, personal expenses, transportation, books…everything that will tell is how much the school will be billing you directly for and then additional costs of attending.</p>
<p>Yes, it would help if you posted your aid and your COA breakdown… I’m getting confused as to what you’re trying to pay for. </p>
<p>Your work study generally is going to cover your “day to day” expenses while in school. </p>
<p>Some other schools (maybe not yours) ALSO include a “student contribution” from a summer job to pay for: books, travel to college, etc…since FA and W/S money wouldn’t be yet available to cover those costs…and W/S earnings are needed to cover day to day costs. The issue seems to be that summer earnings are needed to cover books and transportation to school.</p>
<p>Since low income students sometimes have trouble covering the “student contribution” from a summer job, some schools aren’t including loans in FA pkgs so that low income kids can resort to those if necessary.</p>
<p>The WS amount is not the same amount as the student contribution, BUT that WS amount very well could be to HELP this low income student meet the student contribution. It does NOT have to be exactly the same amount for this to be the case.</p>
<p>Only way to know for sure… Call the school and ask.</p>
<p>As a note, the student contribution could go towards personal expenses or any other portion of the cost of attendance.</p>
<p>OFFER OF FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE</p>
<p>Cost of Attendance (COA) – $57,000
Estimated Books, Supplies, Personal and Travel – $2,350
TOTAL AMOUNT-- $59,350</p>
<p>Contributions:
Parent – $4800
Student – $1800
TOTAL AMOUNT-- $6650</p>
<p>Need Calculated: $52,700</p>
<p>Aid Award Offered:
Institutional Aid – $51,000
Work Study (WS) Amount – $1700</p>
<p>Contributions:
Parent – $4800
Student – $1800
TOTAL AMOUNT-- $6650</p>
<p>Need Calculated: $52,700</p>
<p>Aid Award Offered:
Institutional Aid – $51,000
Work Study (WS) Amount – $1700</p>
<p>According to the ABOVE…work study is not being used to cover student contribution. BOTH are expected. Student contribution is considered to be part of the TOTAL FAMILY contribution (parent contribution PLUS student contribution)…and W-S is considered AID.</p>
<p>The student will be earning about $180 a month from work study (the amount is divided into 2 semesters), so she can’t work thru all of it, and then take another campus job for the rest of the year (nor could she count on finding another job anyway). </p>
<p>While W-S can be spend on ANYTHING, it generally will get spent on day to day expenses/personal expenses. It’s not unusual for a college kid to spend about $45 a week on whatever.</p>
<p>Ok I’ll feign confusion. If your EFC is $0, why isn’t a Pell grant part of your award?</p>
<p>Be that as it may, the stafford loan will cover most of the shortfall. You might want to consider this option.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m sorry I forgot to mention that they included it in the “institutional aid”, I just neglected to post it. I was given a $5,550 grant so that was subtracted from what they offered, so technically they gave me $46,000.</p>
<p>Could I take out a loan in the amount of less than what can be offered with federal loans? I won’t need it all, I don’t think.</p>
<p>Apple, your total monthly cost for your contribution and your parent is well over $500 a month just for this school
year.</p>
<p>If you take $27,000 in stafford loans which could be your total for all four years, your loan repayment would be about $275 a mont for ten years…and you will be a college grad who hopefully gets a job.</p>
<p>I’m not an advocate of large loans, but the max Staffords are not excessive in my opinion.</p>
<p>Ok, I’ll call the uni about Stafford loans. I don’t know, I’m having second thoughts. Is this a good package? I’m not exactly sure how to rate what would be good or bad in terms of my family’s situation. I got accepted into some local state schools that I could go for relatively nothing, but I’m not completely set on them. Can I afford this?</p>
<p>"My only hesitation is that a part-time job might take away from my school work, extracurricular activities, and other social events. I need to stay relatively debt free because I’m considering graduate school in the future. "
OP, excuse me if this comes off harsh - you have been given a wonderful aid package to attend a very expensive school. I understand your parents make little money, but they could find second jobs if it meant putting you through college. My husband and I are both working part time jobs on weekends in addition to our regular full time jobs, and are paying 2 and 1/2 times our EFC for D’s college and we don’t have money in the bank, etc. Pretty much every family is called to sacrifice something during the college years. The fact that you wrote that a job might get in the way of other pursuits blew my mind. News bulletin: working does get in the way of fun, but beggars can’t really be choosers. And, BTW, no one wants to incur debt, but again you have been blessed to only need to take on a very minimal amount of debt. If you are not willing to take on some of the risk/sacrifice for this school, then consider community college and then transfer for the last two years to a state school. Live at home. That would probably be the most affordable scenario for you and your family.</p>
<p>I agree that your aid package is a very good one. By adding the stafford loan to your package, your costs are almost all covered while you are an undergrad at a very expensive school. </p>
<p>Many schools actually package loans in their awards. Yours doesn’t which gives you the CHOICE of taking this loan or finding some other way to cover the costs.</p>
<p>Only YOU can decide if you want to take this loan. We were almost full pay parents for both of our kids, yet we asked each of them to take the stafford loans. It didn’t seem unreasonable to us to have them assume a small portion of the college costs. They both worked while in college too.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, great responses. I’ll be taking out a small amount of Stafford Loans to cover part of my family’s contribution.</p>
<p>Sorry, one last question. Is it possible to pay off federal loans during college (like next summer) because I heard that interest rates really drive the amount of loans given up and it might be easier to pay it off as a student on campus.</p>
<p>Yes, you can begin paying off your Stafford loans any time.</p>