<p>Does anyone knows of bank or financial company who can provide loan for parents with college kid that is under 18 or 17? Not home equity loan since we don't have any with the current bad housing market. Federal plus loan have such a high interest rate. Kid can't qualify for Stafford Loan because he cannot register for service yet. Any suggestion will be helpful. Tried to talk to the Financial Aid office and haven't heard any reply yet.</p>
<p>I think your child can still get a Stafford loan even if he’s not 18 yet and can’t register for the draft.</p>
<p>When will your child turn 18?</p>
<p>Send a PM to kelsmom. She’ll give you the right info about that…she’s a FA officer for a university. </p>
<p>If you need more money than a Stafford…try a Sallie Mae loan.</p>
<p>Thanks but the condition for getting Stafford loan has to register for service. He will not turn 17 after school starts.</p>
<p>Even in that case you can get a Stafford loan. My understanding is if he cannot register yet he will automatically be signed up when he comes of age by taking the Stafford.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad is correct. My son did just that because he didn’t turn 18 until October of his freshman year.</p>
<p>That’s what I thought.</p>
<p>Many kids don’t turn 18 until after school starts and they get Stafford loans…so I knew that there had to be a solution.</p>
<p>Did you contact Kelsmom? If not, do so.</p>
<p>Thanks. The financial aid office informed me that he can get stafford loan but they have to waive his requirement to register due to his age. </p>
<p>I am just wonder if anyone of you looking into private loan since their interests are more attractive than the government loan. If so, what is a good one out there? Salle Mae?</p>
<p>What is your situation?</p>
<p>How much will you be borrowing? Do you have top credit? (each year that you borrow, your credit rating will be negatively affected so by the time your child is a junior, you may have borrowed too much to qualify for more.)</p>
<p>Try Discover, Citibank, and Sallie Mae</p>
<p>Momtocollegekids: Parents need to borrow 20K and have top credit. Kid need to have about 5K by himself which may be even less because he got some scholarship that will reduce it. He will do non work study to help out. He is going to get BME and may be graduate school or Med School after that. </p>
<p>Will look into citibank, discover and sallie Mae. Thanks</p>
<p>The parents are going to borrow $20,000 a year for their kiddo to go to undergraduate school? Are there any other options on the table? </p>
<p>The question on the FAFSA is very clear…IF you are 18 or over, you must register for the selective service. If you are under 18, you can’t do so. The student would still be eligible for the Stafford loans.</p>
<p>I wish there is other option but we have no home equity loan at all with this market. Yup, the college cost $60K and our share is about 20K with kid taking 5K in Stafford and another 5 on work study. The rest are scholarships. Probably not worth it to borrow from our 401K retirement fund.</p>
<p>I think Thumper meant…are there any other less expensive school choices on the table. Does your son have any less expensive college choices?</p>
<p>Since your son will be going to med/grad school, I would think that y’all would want to minimize as much debt as possible.</p>
<p>I’m confused. Are you saying that you’re borrowing your entire “family contribution” of $20k per year? </p>
<p>Isn’t there any way that you could contribute some out of “current income” to reduce the need to borrow $80k? Schools will let you set up a monthly payment plan (also thru Sallie Mae), so that may be an option.</p>
<p>Borrowing $80k total is going to result in monthly payments of about $900 per month for you. The question you need to ask yourself is this…if you can’t come up with - say an extra $400-500 per month now to contribute towards college costs - how will you be able to come up with twice that much in loan payments? I don’t mean to sound harsh…it’s just something to think about. Sometimes parents choose loans because they don’t have much extra money each month to pay towards college, but they don’t seem to realize that if they can’t afford to pay now, how will they afford to pay large payments later?</p>
<p>As I understand, your son is quite young. It might be wise for him to take a gap year and reapply to schools that would offer better scholarships and such. If he were to take that option, he must not take any local college classes…He needs to preserve his incoming frosh status for best FA and merit.</p>
<p>Was your son a National Merit Finalist?</p>
<p>Yes…I meant…are there less expensive college choices on the table. That is a LOT to borrow for undergrad work…if you add in the Stafford loans , it would be over $100,000 for undergrad study. Surely there are more affordable options out there for this student.</p>
<p>Mom2collegekids and thumper1,</p>
<p>Yes, he got fullride to OU and local university. He is a NFM and Semifinalist for presidential scholar right now. However, he took classes at local University before and it was not challenge for him at all. So, he doesn’t really want to go to OU or local university. </p>
<p>We plan to set up monthly payment that we can do for the college. The total cost of the tuition, room board… is about 60K per year and the parents contribution is 20K. So, according to the school policy and the FA package, the student will only have 5000 loan per year. So, he will have 20K of loan when he graduated. However, we, the parents, will have 80K. If he goes to med school, we told him he will be on his own. I think 20K to get an undergraduate for him is not too bad if his starting salary will be much more than 20K. Just my thoughts.</p>
<p>*However, he took classes at local University before and it was not challenge for him at all. So, he doesn’t really want to go to OU or local university. *</p>
<p>I don’t think you can compare the classes at a local u to a state flagship. </p>
<p>And if his major is a typical pre-med major (bio, chem, math, etc), then he CERTAINLY would be challenged in his classes and have other smart kids as classmates. </p>
<p>My son is pre-med at our flagship and he works his tail off to get straight A’s (he’s a Chemical Engineering major with bio, chem, and math as minors). I think it’s a mistake to think that your child won’t be challenged at OU. (is this Oklahoma, Ohio, or Oregon?) I’m thinking it’s Oklahoma. </p>
<p>Having $80k in debt by the time your son graduates seems waaaay too daunting to me. If you don’t easily have an extra $900 per month now, why will you have that much then?</p>
<p>Yes, it is Oklahoma State. He is not taking pre-med. He is going for Biomedical Engineering so he can decide if he wants to be an engineer or a doctor in graduate school. He did take the classes at state flagship when I said local University. He even did research with one of the professor. Yup, it is a lot … of money. It is more headache to have smart kid than average kid for sure. Sorry to say that but parents are what others call “real suckers!” May be it is a good headache!</p>
<p>I wish my son will struggle somes in all his classes but so far none. Including college classes, AP… Still not sure what we are going to do yet but we will figure out something before school starts.</p>
<p>*Yes, it is Oklahoma State. *</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>Are you saying OSU (Oklahoma State Univ)…or are you saying OU (Oklahoma University)???</p>
<p>Maybe he needs to apply elsewhere…there are other schools that are higher ranked that will still give him big NMF scholarships.</p>
<p>*He is not taking pre-med. He is going for Biomedical Engineering so he can decide if he wants to be an engineer or a doctor in graduate school. *</p>
<p>??? </p>
<p>Are you saying that he’s going to go to grad school and then maybe apply to med school after getting a Masters or PhD?? Well, if that is true, he really needs to make sure he has his pre-med pre-reqs done as an undergrad…because those are undergrad classes.</p>
<p>The fullride is the University of Oklahoma at Norman instead of state of Oklahoma. He got waitlisted by his top 5 choices of school including MIT, Stanford, WASHU… It is too late to apply anywhere right now. He just have to decide with the schools accepted him.</p>
<p>Going to med school does not required to have pre-med degree. So, he is going to Biomedical engineering degree. They have tracks for BME students that is going for med school. So, that should cover it.</p>