Financial aid...not enough

RNnewbie2014 · Jul 13, 2013

I have subsidized and unsubsidized loans. You can receive both for whatever amount they award you. If you need more, you have to go through another process about how to obtain more. If you have good credit, I'm sure sallie mae is okay. I have used it too. Horrible interest rate though for me because I am only 22 with not a nice credit line. Also, discover the credit card company has loans that you can get as low as 6 % which is pretty good!! If you have good credit, you should have no trouble getting that.

phuretrotr · Jul 13, 2013

Layluhh14's post is very accurate. I as well have both subsidized and unsubsidized loans for every semester. However, I have never asked for any amount. I was usually given a maximum amount of money I can borrow and I could either choose to borrow that maximum amount or take less. That might be what you did. If it is what you did, then you will definitely get the loan because it is offered, so you take it or leave it.

If you are really worried about not having enough to live on, or if you don't get that job, you can take out a private student loan with interest to cover the rest. However, like Layluhh14 said, you must have good credit. Or, you will have to have a co-signer or two. You can usually get these loans through some banks or privately, such as sallie mae. To check, you might be able to check out a banks website to see if they offer private student loans. I was able to fill out my whole application online.

Peppermint_RN · Jul 13, 2013

There's a max amount of subsidized loans your school can give. I got the max for mine for 3 years but it wasn't enough. To get my unsubsidized loan, I had to write an itemized list of my income & monthly bills so the financial aid office could determine how much more I needed. Which wasn't enough to live off of at all, but did cover the cost of classes and most of my books.

I did not try to go through a bank or other financial institution other than the school. You might have more luck there (probably higher rates though) to take out more money if you need to.

Good luck to to you! Hope it all works out! :)

Julesmama28 · Jul 13, 2013

If you're worried about the books, talk to others in the program. 1200$ is a lot of money for books! Can you get by using older used editions? I would bet for most classes you could. I spent maybe 150$ each semester on books. The only ones I bought new were the drug guide and the med surge book because my instructor scared me. Lol I totally could have gotten away with an older one tho. Others in my class did. So, unless you're freaking about living expenses, there's another way besides sighting your life away with loans for books you might hardly touch.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Jul 13, 2013

$1200 for books? WHAT? I don't think I spent that much on books in 4 years of college. It's time to check out half.com or amazon.com and buy some used copies.

Loan programs often do not take things like books into account. You can apply for private loans... my program was way more expensive than yours and I got a minimal amount of financial aid. The majority of it was paid for with private student loans and my interest rate is nowhere near 6% on any of them. Most are in the 3% range.

LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN · Jul 13, 2013

$1200 for books? WHAT? I don't think I spent that much on books in 4 years of college. It's time to check out half.com or amazon.com and buy some used copies.
Loan programs often do not take things like books into account. You can apply for private loans... my program was way more expensive than yours and I got a minimal amount of financial aid. The majority of it was paid for with private student loans and my interest rate is nowhere near 6% on any of them. Most are in the 3% range.

THIS.

I got my recommended books and my text books from Amazon.com. I also rented my textbooks. SOOOO much cheaper. The "recommended" reading guides are MUCH more important and transition to practice better than textbooks, IMHO.

adc85 · Jul 14, 2013

Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm not worried about living expenses at the moment, mostly just school expenses. I don't plan on buying all my books at the bookstore, but even if I get them all half price elsewhere, that's still 600 bucks I don't have right now. I'm going to email the professors and ask if previous editions are acceptable, because a friend gave me some off her books (she recently graduated), and also ask if all the books will be used in the first semester, or if the book list is for the whole program. I may only need a portion of those books to start out. I guess what I really wondered about was the unsub loan. My school's loan form has a space to fill in the amount of money you need/request, so I requested 2500. Also I googled unsub loans and it says they are not based on financial need, so I am confused how the school determines what amount I can receive.

I was just really frazzled since I found out yesterday that I wasn't going to be able to use any of my sub loan funds for books, since they only give me half of the loan this semester and the other half in the spring. What's really frustrating about that is Ive done the math and i am probably going to have a surplus of loan funds next semester, would be nice if I could use that surplus now to buy books! Sheesh!

203bravo, MSN, APRN · Jul 14, 2013

the award of 4,500$ of sub federal loans implies that you are a 2nd year student... The max amount of federal loans that can be borrowed by 2nd year students is 10,500$ of which no more than 4,500$ can be subsidized. This would mean that you still have up to 6,000$ to borrow. That would mean an extra 3,000$ per semester.