Budgets, Loans, Scholarships - Oh my.

Defibn', RN, EMT-P · Jan 31, 2020

1) I'm only one month in so I don't have a lot for you here. My biggest suggestion is to have some financial security before starting school. How much is ultimately up to you. It depends on if you have family that will help or not if you get into a jam. You will need to have some readily accessible cash. No missing clinical because you can't afford to put a new tire on your car (that sort of thing.) I would suggest that a single person have at least a few thousand bucks that's truly an emergency fund by the time school starts. Think about this, you will not be working for 3 years. Loans are limited (for good reason). It would be better to have at least 5k in the bank. It can go pretty quick when you have no steady income.

2) For educational loans you can take however much you want up to the cost of attendance, which is set by your financial aid office. Right now, the direct unsubsidized loan from the government is a max of $20,500/yr. You can then take Grad PLUS loans from the government up to the cost of attendance. I opted to take the direct unsubsidized and then took out the rest of the cost of attendance from a discover health professions loan. The Grad PLUS has high fees and a slightly higher interest rate than what I got from Discover (no fees).

Long story short, I took out the max. However, I have 2 kids in daycare and also moved my family across the country. So, we wanted to be sure we had a little buffer. I don't plan to take the max each year.

3) I did not bother with scholarships. Mainly because I'm super lazy about that kind of thing and didn't care to go through all the applications for $500.

sjbrk · Feb 4, 2020

So the thing with scholarships is, if you have time prior to school, go for it! But once you're in school...

I recently received an email about a scholarship application but the amount of work it required for how much money it was for ($1000-$2500) was just...not worth it. I don't have time. My loans will be about $150k (tuition and some travel expenses). I don't care about $2500 at that point, ya know? So do your best to get after that stuff prior to school starting, bc you won't care at all afterward. If you're going to take out a personal loan, do it before you quit your job. One of my classmates found a low(ish) interest loan and took out 10k just to have in case of emergencies. Federal loans will only allow you to pull out whatever your school says tuition + cost of living is. It gets really, really tight. Especially if you have to travel for clinicals, which lots of schools have you do.

brookalyn, BSN, RN · Feb 28, 2020

On 1/31/2020 at 2:16 PM, Defibn' said:
1) I'm only one month in so I don't have a lot for you here. My biggest suggestion is to have some financial security before starting school. How much is ultimately up to you. It depends on if you have family that will help or not if you get into a jam. You will need to have some readily accessible cash. No missing clinical because you can't afford to put a new tire on your car (that sort of thing.) I would suggest that a single person have at least a few thousand bucks that's truly an emergency fund by the time school starts. Think about this, you will not be working for 3 years. Loans are limited (for good reason). It would be better to have at least 5k in the bank. It can go pretty quick when you have no steady income.
2) For educational loans you can take however much you want up to the cost of attendance, which is set by your financial aid office. Right now, the direct unsubsidized loan from the government is a max of $20,500/yr. You can then take Grad PLUS loans from the government up to the cost of attendance. I opted to take the direct unsubsidized and then took out the rest of the cost of attendance from a discover health professions loan. The Grad PLUS has high fees and a slightly higher interest rate than what I got from Discover (no fees).
Long story short, I took out the max. However, I have 2 kids in daycare and also moved my family across the country. So, we wanted to be sure we had a little buffer. I don't plan to take the max each year.
3) I did not bother with Scholarships. Mainly because I'm super lazy about that kind of thing and didn't care to go through all the applications for $500.

When did you apply for the Discover health professions loan in reference to your program start date? Did you have any savings? How did you determine how much to ask for the Discover loan? We will have some savings when I start school and my husband will be working, but I am wondering if we should keep our savings for a rainy day or if I should budget it in to use for my living expenses? I'll be living in a different state than my husband so we'll be duplicating living expenses. Maybe I am overthinking it. My undergrad loans caused me so much anxiety because of the bad interest rates. I want to make the best decision, but I've never done this before. Thank you in advance ?

Defibn', RN, EMT-P · Feb 28, 2020

7 hours ago, brookalyn said:
When did you apply for the Discover health professions loan in reference to your program start date? Did you have any savings? How did you determine how much to ask for the Discover loan? We will have some savings when I start school and my husband will be working, but I am wondering if we should keep our savings for a rainy day or if I should budget it in to use for my living expenses? I'll be living in a different state than my husband so we'll be duplicating living expenses. Maybe I am overthinking it. My undergrad loans caused me so much anxiety because of the bad interest rates. I want to make the best decision, but I've never done this before. Thank you in advance ?

I applied for Discover loan about 2 months before the program started. We had a decent savings account going into school and are trying not to touch it. My spouse transitioned to working from home. We have two kids so the thought of forgoing loans and depleting our savings is a little scary. We opted to keep our savings and take out the max loans to make up some of my lost income. It's daunting to see how much you will owe when you get out of school. We just try not to think about it right now. There is too much else to stress about in anesthesia school. The way I figure it, when I get out of school I'll be making $160k minimum; which is almost three times as much as I made as an RN. You can go ahead and apply for total cost of attendance and if you decide later that you don't want all of it, you can cancel some of it.

brookalyn, BSN, RN · Feb 29, 2020

19 hours ago, Defibn' said:
I applied for Discover loan about 2 months before the program started. We had a decent savings account going into school and are trying not to touch it. My spouse transitioned to working from home. We have two kids so the thought of forgoing loans and depleting our savings is a little scary. We opted to keep our savings and take out the max loans to make up some of my lost income. It's daunting to see how much you will owe when you get out of school. We just try not to think about it right now. There is too much else to stress about in anesthesia school. The way I figure it, when I get out of school I'll be making $160k minimum; which is almost three times as much as I made as an RN. You can go ahead and apply for total cost of attendance and if you decide later that you don't want all of it, you can cancel some of it.

Thank you so much for your reply!! I think I need to relax a little bit and embrace the loans for now ha. I like how you said there is already too much stress without worrying about the $. You’ve been very helpful. ⭐️

Budgets, Loans, Scholarships - Oh my.

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