Has anyone had experience getting an advance on a student loan? My school won’t pay out my $3,500 loan until 2/28 but I need the money now for living expenses, books etc. I’m not sure if I should apply for a private loan to help in the meantime of if any financial institutions will offer an earlier payout considering I’ll be getting the federal loan in ~2 months.
Good luck. The schools don’t disburse those loans…or make refunds…until they are SURE you will remain a student.
But go and ask your financial aid office.
Federal rules prevent any government financial aid (Pell grants, Stafford loans, state grants, etc.) from being disbursed until 10 days before the start of classes.
Will 100% of your bill from the college be covered by other aid? If not, that loan will first go to pay the bill and you’ll receive the rest according to the school’s schedule. One daughter gets hers within days of the semester starting (often before classes start) and the other one gets hers 4-5 weeks after school starts.
As for getting other student loans, it is unlikely you’ll get the money immediately. Things take a while to process. See if your school has any short term loans to cover the gap period.
Someone clarify this for me, please. Don’t Fed loans have to go directly to the school?
The loan does go to the school, but if the amounts received are in excess of tuition and fees, the excess can be paid to the student for rent/books/etc.
What did you do in the fall term? Surely you knew that this refund wasn’t going to be available now!
This can happen for example if the student lives off campus. The COA might include estimates for off campus food and housing costs.
Loans, Pell can pay for those expenses, so once the university billed items like tuition and fees are satisfied by aid, the rest can be refunded to the student.
But this student HAD those expenses for the fall term…and didn’t get money back before the term began.
What did he or she do for the fall term to deal with this shortfall?
And like i said…it’s not like it was a surprise!
I feel ya, but could you get a little job to help pay for expenses in the meantime?
TBH, I’ve never heard of anyone getting an advance on a federal school loan. The money from fall is meant to see you through fall and winter semesters, and it must all be budgeted. At my school, we are supposed to get the distribution about “10 days” before the semester starts, last semester it turned into five days after the school was paid and the money was transferred to my bank account. This time, it’s a Friday before a federal holiday so at best it might be three to four days before spring semester starts. Nothing you can do about it except adapt.
Why don’t you minimally have a part time job to help meet some of your day to day expenses?:
Did you work over the holiday vacation…babysitting or something?