<p>Does anyone recommend a certain strategy to pay off the self help quantity in the fin aid package?</p>
<p>I have the same question... 5,500 is quite a lot money...</p>
<p>Loans/Work Study</p>
<p>I would probably go with loans with occasional work study(UROP's pay around 9/hr I think)</p>
<p>I'm also wondering about how to meet the self-help.</p>
<p>Are there any jobs which give $10/hr or more? I want to meet the self-help without taking any loan. Has anybody ever done it before?</p>
<p>scholarships. Outside merit awards. They help a lot. I'm more worried about summer earning expectations.</p>
<p>ive seen some work study jobs that pay 17/hr</p>
<p>Hmm so do you guys know of anyone who works entirely without loans to fulfil the $5500 self-help portion?</p>
<p>Also, does this $5500 figure stay the same for all 4 years, or does it increase?</p>
<p>so far as i can tell (poking around the finaid website and a recent tech article) it stays the same. i may know someone who works enough to not have loans...but that's a strange story, and probably not applicable. is there a reason you're so keen to not take loans? i don't like the idea particularly much either, given that i'll be paying for everything, eventually, but do realize that an MIT education gives you a singularly excellent position from which to pay it off.</p>
<p>When I was a student (I'm all graduated now), I took out loans to cover the whole family contribution (student and parent), since my parents didn't actually contribute anything.</p>
<p>I recommend the loan thing if you can get Federal Perkins Loans or Federal Subsidized Direct Loans (Stafford/Ford Loans). Those loans don't accrue any interest while you're in school and you don't have to start making payments until 6 months after you graduate. If you end up making enough money on summer jobs or UROPs or whatever that you find you didn't need the loans, just pay them off early (there's no penalty for paying them off early, and since they won't have accrued any interest you won't have lost any money). If you don't qualify for subsidized loans it's a tougher question though.</p>
<p>Of course everyone's financial situation is different, so you'll probably want to talk to a financial aid officer at MIT to get all your questions answered. They know a lot more about this than I do, and I've generally found them to be really helpful and quick to answer emails.</p>
<p>I realize racking up a lot of debt can be scary, but student loans are really common -- I think most people end up taking out some kind of loan to pay for MIT.</p>
<p>Also, when I was at MIT the self-help part was called "Student Summer Earnings" and it did go up every year. I guess the reasoning is you'll be gradually getting better paying summer jobs.</p>
<p>Self Help is different than Summer Earning expectations. Summer earning expectations go up every year. But self help staysthe same. I think fresh mean summer earnings is supposed to be 1200 or something then it doubles almost and then it increases again and again each year.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification MPiccolo. Sorry to give any misleading info, I guess I don't know exactly where Self Help fits into the equation. Guess I should have realized it wasn't the same as summer earnings -- $5500 would be a lot to expect a frosh to contribute from a summer job!</p>
<p>On my old financial aid statements there are (1) parents contribution, (2) student summer earnings, and (3) student assets. 1+2+3 = Family Contribution. Then there's tuition/books/etc which is called Student Expense Budget. Student Expense Budget - Family Contribution = Financial Need.</p>
<p>The Financial Need is broken down into various sources of $$ -- grants, loans, outside scholarships, and "term-time work."</p>
<p>The reason I don't want to take loans is that, as an international student, the only type of loan I can get is the Tech Loan, which is unsubsidized and has a fixed interest rate of 8%. I'd like to leave it as a last resort and work as much as I can to meet the self-help.</p>
<p>2bad4u: You said that you've seen some jobs that pay 17/hr. What kinds of jobs are they?</p>
<p>The minimum wage is 8.75/hr, but how much do students usually earn per hour?</p>
<p>And one last question, with all the studying and homework, how much free time do you usually get (if you don't do any extracurricular activities) to work on on-campus jobs?</p>
<p>Thanks, guys!</p>
<p>tutoring math elem kids , </p>
<p>there are some off campus jobs SAT prep tutoring that ive seen pay more than 20, i think you need above SAT score above 1500 or something like that.</p>
<p>weekends are always free to work there usually time in weekdays to work around 3 hrs but theres always the one week where your unexpectedly hosed. Hard to make a commitment as big as a job on a weekday but it also depends on employer.</p>
<p>there's a page through the employment page that lists all the wages that were given.</p>
<p>I haven't got a Keberos ID so I can't access the employment page at the moment. Anyway, I think I already have a rough idea. Thanks!</p>
<p>scholarships from private organizations ...check out your local counseling office</p>
<p>The Tech Loan for next year will actually be 7% and Subsidized. More information on this is coming. We were able to make a change to the program for students who are funding their Self Help with a Tech Loan.</p>
<p>I posted an entry on this on the blog (<a href="http://blogs.mit.edu/barkowitz/posts/9497.aspx%5B/url%5D">http://blogs.mit.edu/barkowitz/posts/9497.aspx</a>) inviting your questions and welcoming current students to post their feedback and suggestions.</p>
<p>Wait, uh.......</p>
<p>is this self-help given on the same sheet as our finaid offers? I see a student contribution... but it's nowhere near 5500 and not called "self-help".</p>
<p>pebbles. It's under what your awards. Like you have how much MIT is given you, and then it says self help.</p>
<p>student contribution is just 1500 summer earnings expectation</p>