Financial Aid rant!

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Hey all!

Good to be back again. We finally got our car fixed, so maybe me and hubby will be able to go on our date that we missed. :D Stupid car! I can't wait till I can afford something a bit more reliable.

Anyways, my latest woe is over the application process for financial aid. I know it is partly my fault for waiting so long, but I didn't know I would if I would even be able to go college this fall until June-ish. So anyways, it's annoying because class starts in a month, and I am STILL WAITING to get the extra paperwork in the mail. I keep filling out papers, and then faxing them back, and whenever I can, I do applications online, all in an effort to speed this whole thing up. First they wanted me to fax them copies of all my ID gunk, like birth sert, ss card, marriage cert., etc., and then I had to wait for them to get all that, and NOW they have decided that I am suspiciously poor (we made less than $18,000 last year, if that's any clue) and they need to re-verify my income information.

So now I have to send them copies of my W2's, and more paperwork, and I only have ONE W2 that I can't find, so now I'm not sure if I'm going to have to have it mailed to me or what. I'm so scared I won't get through this process in time for school. I don't understand why they didn't just ask for me this stuff ALL AT ONCE that I had some time to get it together. And the paperwork the school was supposed to have mailed out on Wednesday still hasn't arrived. They live in the same state, so what's taking so long??

Is this NORMAL for the application process?

Ask about Stafford Loans. My SAR said that we should be able to contribute lots of money also but I still qualified for an unsubsidized Stafford Loan.

No advice here, just sympathy for all you are going through. I went to pay for classes yesterday (paying cash out of pocket, that's MY financial aid rant! ouch!) and the mother/daughter duo behind me in line apparently had one horrible morning dealing with financial aid too. I was hearing all kinds of nightmarish stories.

I hope you get all the paperwork you need in time. Best of luck in dealing with the bureaucracy and red tape. They make it so darn difficult, dont' they?

Speaking of scholarship, my financial aid advisor told me that they hurt you more than help you! I wonder if it's true?

And also I went through the discovernursing.com they had some good scholarship info but you have to meet so many criterias that it's impossible to even think about them. Rarely could you find one that was over 1000 and only one time.

Where would we be without the Loans? I couldn't get by on just scholarshops, grants etc.. Don't get me wrong, "free money" is preferable to Loans, but at least the loans are a given, if you haven't used all the Max loan money alloted.

My son didn't make as much $$ this summer as he had planned, thank goodness for student loans, so he can at least stay in school, pay apartment expenses.. books.. car payment.. etc.. :)

Yay! I'm not alone! lol! I guess misery loves company, eh? :p

Anyways, I'm seriously glad that I'm not the only one who's stressed over this, and I definatly feel better about it!

That whole "expected family contribution" thing is stupid, IMO. I've heard of people who made enough money to live off of the year before applying to school but then got laid off and couldn't get financial help because they base the fin. aid eligibility off what you made the previous year. UGH. It's like they are basing their numbers off some sort of dream scenario in which we are all lucky enough to have big, fat college funds sitting in a bank that our parents have been saving for us since before we were born. It scares the crud out of me to think how expensive college is now and how much it will cost once MY kids start school.

pdmt, I can't belive that thing about the $10,000! :eek: How unrealistic and stupid.

Good luck to everybody!

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