Stafford Loans with a previous degree?

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Hey y'all,

I am applying to start a nursing program in January 2012 and am starting to get worried about financial aid. I applied to an ADN program at my community college and haven't gotten many straight answers from their financial aid office. Has anyone here applied for Stafford Loans for nursing school if they have a previous degree? I have a BA already but am pretty far from the aggregate loan limit. The thing I'm worried about is the Satisfactory Academic Progress standards... am I going to be ineligible because I've completed a certain number of credit hours?

Any advice on this is appreciated!

I was denied financial aid for my ADN program because of SAP (150% rule). I had to petition multiple times to get them to give me enough financial aid to complete the program. I get just enough to cover tuition ($70/credit hour, not much) and I work to cover all my other expenses. Keep fighting for it! The rule is designed to stop those from getting financial aid who have spent years in college and gotten nowhere. It isn't designed to prevent those of us with a bachelors degree from changing careers (but that is unfortunately what happens a lot).

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Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care.

My school's appeal process for this is no longer in place :( their financial aid office is severely backed up (there was an article about it on the front page of the Dallas Morning News today) so I can understand why they can't have thousands of people petitioning for that when they can't even get funds disbursed. How many hours do you work to cover your expenses? I think I can work 25-35 hours while doing my ADN, but then again I might be sorely mistaken... just want to make sure I know what I'm getting myself into! (I know it will be hard, just hoping it's not impossible.)

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That stinks you cannot appeal! I think there should be an automatic process in place to "skip" over the SAP ban for those with a documented previous bachelors degree!

I work around 20-25 hours a week right now because I am taking Med/Surg (lecture, seminar, clinical) plus Nursing Skills II (lecture, lab) and Pharmacology II (lecture). After this quarter, I will probably go back to working 40 hours a week because we just have 1 class (6-8 credit hours for lecture, seminar, clinical). I work as a PCA at a local hospital. It's rough and I've had to give up a lot, but it will be well worth it in the end!

Get any and all non-nursing classes out of the way (like the sciences) before you even start. It will make your life a million times easier! There are people that are full-time nursing students with full-time jobs and have families. It is doable, but I wouldn't recommend it. I recommend working the LEAST amount of hours you can while staying financially stable.

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Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care.

Yeah I gotcha. Luckily my program requires us to take almost all our non-nursing classes before we apply, otherwise there's no way we'd get accepted. So I'll just have nursing lecture/lab, clinical, and one class about death. So the most hours I'll be taking in one semester is 12, which is good!

During our summer semester, there are 4 weeks where we have clinical 3 days a week (no lecture) so for that semester I'm hoping I can get a job as a PCT/PCA/CNA/what have you... it'll be our second semester so hopefully that'll be possible!

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Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care.

Just thought I'd update in case there are any other students dealing with this issue. I was able to get my SAP hours re-evaluated. They decided not to count any credit hours from my last degree that are unrelated to nursing against me (which were a lot, considering I have a degree in Art History!). So it's looking like I'll be eligible to get federal loans for the duration of the program.

Thanks everyone for the responses!

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