Available Student Loans? - High Cost of Living - Metro NY - Thoughts???

[NURSE_IZA]

I know there are enough of these threads asking about general loans, how much did you save, etc. I looked into my specific question, but did not see any situations that were directly applicable.

In a nutshell, I am expecting (hopefully) to get accepted into one of my CRNA programs this fall. My husband and I set this as a personal goal for myself for a few years out and know what we are getting into in terms of financial resilience. We have accepted that we will just have to take out multiple loans to cover the costs of this period and worry about paying it off as soon as I graduate. We have done our research and know all of the available federal loans and amounts. However, for the most part these cover the cost of the school tuition and some very meager part of the "cost of living". We recognize that we will have to depend solely on his income for the next two years (which is not insubstantial), however, the numbers say that it will be stretch given the cost of goods/services in our area - even with some savings. I am not opposed to trading in my comfy-budget for a financially tight period that is deemed worthy. However, basic bills still need to be paid during these 2 years.

The crutch of the situation is that we live in the metro NY area and do not have local family, so the cost of living in our area (mortgage, 2 car notes, etc) is much higher than it would be in other parts of the US (no offense to others out there). It seems like other prospective students are staying with parents or have no appreciable bills -at least the ones that I ask. I am concerned on even "if" we can get enough loans in this tough financial market to cover the rest of our "cost of living" and make this plausible. Surely dropping out in the middle to cover bills is a big no-no.

Does anyone know how this is typically handled? Does the specialized medical loans industry still exist? I am concerned that as soon as any potential lender (bank) realizes that the tuition is covered by federal loans, they would say classify any other potential loans as "personal loans" - thus having much higher qualifications standards and having higher risks of being turned away empty handed.

I brought this up briefly with a CRNA program director last year and was told that she "has not heard of anyone (in her program) not being about to get the loans they need". I think there is a disconnect here that is pretty disconcerting from the outset...

Anyone with an inside perspective that can help?

Anything is useful..

Thanks.

[FLMSRN]

I am interested as well. Subscribed

[missnurse01, MSN, RN]

you are pretty right on all accounts and I am totally with you on freaking out. My situation is different in that we have 3 kids and I am the sole income earner. So no income for 2+ years. We are saving of course, and I was just reading about rolling my 401k into an IRA which you can draw on at normal tax rates if you are doing so for education. Haven't fully investigated this yet but sounds good! So there is some money there. I can't find any grad school loans from private lenders that are not school certified. So you will have to do private loans, a second mortgage or whatever.

Have you called your school to see what they set as the cost of attendance? That is the max you can borrow and it should be fairly high for your area.

good luck

[ckh23, BSN, RN]

Have you looked into grad plus loans?