Hello CCers,
Some of you have followed my journey and might remember my situation. For those that don’t:
I’m attending Drexel beginning Autumn quarter 2017. They’ve been very generous with their merit scholarships, and I received a full federal package of loans/grants/workstudy. I’m going to be living off campus and splitting an apartment with my gf who has a jack kent cooke graduate scholarship for attending UPenn. As a result, my contribution for rent will only have to be around 500$ a month. My parents are NOT paying for my tuition, but they have agreed to pay for living expenses (phew). That includes but is not limited to: Insurance, Utilities, textbooks, a new laptop, etc. Depending on my parent’s finances, they may agree to help pay for rent, and food budgeting, but for now I’m planning on paying for it all myself. I’d rather get a wonderful gift later on than a nasty surprise. Because Drexel has co ops, I’m signing up for a 2 co-op program. Therefore, I believe I’ll be in school for 2 quarters each year, and 2 quarters of co op each year, with a 3rd year where I just do 2 quarters of courses before graduating. Drexel has broken down their costs and institutional awards by quarter. 1st Year:
Tuition: $35,000 (ish)
Rent+food: $10,000
COA/1st yr: $45,000
Grants/workstudy per ACADEMIC quarter:
Grants: $12,888
workstudy: $375
TOTAL GIFT: $13,263
2 academic quarters in the first year will mean:
Grants: $26,526
Federal loan distribution:
Perkins: $3,000
Subsidized: $4,500
Unsub: $2,000
TOTAL: $9,500
Therefore, in the first year, I will have un-covered tuition + room costs of:
$8,974.
This will need to be covered via private loans. My parents are willing to cosign, and I have a 800+ credit score.
Should I try to take out a loan for more? Drexel’s cost of attendance is much higher because they estimate huge costs for room/board every quarter but I don’t need that much. My mother was telling me that debtors normally take the cost of attendance from a college and work down from there. When I was trying to do my own research it seemed like an individual private loan is up to $10,000. Basically, I would need one of those in year 1, one of those in year 2, andless in year 3 because I’d only have 2 quarters. Where do you guys think I should be looking? It seemed like Sallie Mae is the default student loan option.
It’s worth mentioning that while this seems like a lot of loans I would also be doing work co ops, and I have a lot of previous work experience to make me competitive for them. Each co op is 2 quarters long, and should net me around $15,000, meaning $30,000 to pay towards the loans before my education is even done.
I apologize for the long/possibly confusing post, but my stepdad is too old to help me out and my mother is a Russian immigrant with no grasp of how complicated the financial aid process can be.
