Help! Paying For NS?

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So, I'm 20 years old and live in a different state than my parents. I haven't relied on them financially for a few years, mainly because they are separated and are lower-middle class. I am currently unemployed and i know that if i get a part-time job it will interfere with my studies (pre-nursing, taking 14credits). I completed all my pre-reqs and have a 4.0 gpa and i know based on my NET scores that i will be accepted for the spring '10 session that starts in December.

Because i am 20 and am considered a 'dependent' (although i am independent) until i am 24 i can only borrow a max of $5,500/year. I have no co-signer for any other types of loans. And my unemployment benefits run out in about a month and have had trouble finding a job. I have some money in the bank; when i say some, i mean very little. :(

My school isn't counseling me as to what my options are. I ended up crying and yelling at the woman in my financial aid office because she shrugged her shoulders at me when I asked how to make $5,500 pay for rent, food, and transportation for an entire year.

I'm really stressed and need some advice.

I scared to work and go to NS. I'm not lazy; I just want to get everything out of my education I can so that I can be the best that I can be. :cry: I don't want to choose between NS and having food and a place to live. My brother had to drop out of college for the same reasons.

My question is:

What types of grants/scholarships are available to nursing students with high gpa's?

Is it possible to work and attend NS at the same time and still do well?

How have you made through NS without relying on anyone but yourself?

Please give some advice to a young person who doesn't have any idea on what the to do.

Sorry, i'm nervous and writing alot!

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  • i had this problem when i began college as well. i had been living with my grandparents and my mom was in a different state and i have not had contact with my father in over fifteen years. i was not allowed to go by my grandmother's income because she wasn't my legal guardian and only had power of attorny over me.
  • you have to go by your parents income until you are 24 years of age, married or have had a child. (please correct me if i am wrong!)
  • i live in florida and right before graduation i applied for the florida's bright futures scholarship and i earned that which is amazing because i had a crappy gpa in highschool. it covers 100% of everything class wise but excludes cost of books,room and board (which isn't an option at my community college), and summer courses until your associate degree. then it covers like 80% of what isn't listed for your bacherlors and like 50% or 40% of everything for your masters and so on.
  • also, my mother moved in with us a year ago and couldn't find work for so long so i applied for the pell grant and i got a lot with that. i'm not sure what they base on it but i was going to college full time and had a 4.0 gpa. those are the two things i'm running on and i'm in my last year of nursing school.
  • there's something i am going to look into, and you should as well, and it is called wia. go to your unemployment office (i'm collecting unemployment as well...) and talk to them how you want to try to obtain that because it'll cover the cost of your nclex and classes etc.
  • hope this helps and good luck!

:typing

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Look into WIA from your state's department of labor. Since you're receiving unemployment, you should qualify. They will not pay for pre-reqs but when you're actually enrolled and starting nursing classes, they offer a great deal of financial assistance to help you get through with school. Good luck!

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I didnt grow up in a "good" family. My parents were not stable (until recently) and i moved out when i was 15 years old. I told the financial aid office this and they told me i needed to get two letters from my friends mom who i lived with, and my boyfriends mom, who helps me out stating my situation, and then i had to write a letter stating my situation. Im only 21.. i was 19 then. When i do the financial aid, it only goes my my income, so i get alot from the pell grant. I also took out a 3,000 dollar loan one semester to buy a car. I dont know what campus you went to, considering i saw you were on the ccac post before.. but they helped me out. And i do work while im in nursing school. I work 12 hours a week and i make 11 dollars an hour.. i dont have to pay for rent or food or anything except things for my car and my cell phone. It is hard, just because you never have time for yourself.. but anyone can do it

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I didnt grow up in a "good" family. My parents were not stable (until recently) and i moved out when i was 15 years old. I told the financial aid office this and they told me i needed to get two letters from my friends mom who i lived with, and my boyfriends mom, who helps me out stating my situation, and then i had to write a letter stating my situation. Im only 21.. i was 19 then. When i do the financial aid, it only goes my my income, so i get alot from the pell grant. I also took out a 3,000 dollar loan one semester to buy a car. I dont know what campus you went to, considering i saw you were on the ccac post before.. but they helped me out. And i do work while im in nursing school. I work 12 hours a week and i make 11 dollars an hour.. i dont have to pay for rent or food or anything except things for my car and my cell phone. It is hard, just because you never have time for yourself.. but anyone can do it

Thank you for posting this. CCAC isn't good for financial aid counseling. Honestly, I can only get $1,600 per semester. I cried when the financial aid woman told me this in front of other students...and yeah, I was crying so they embarrassed me and gave me no counseling. The woman at the office told me that those letters wouldn't make a difference in my loan amount. 3,000 is almost twice 1,600!!!! I ****ing hate CCAC's "help"....more like ****me over.

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yea.. its a big difference if your independant or dependant.. im now considered independant thanks to those letters.. therefore i get higher amounts for loans

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One of the things that helped me was that my mom didn't qualify for the parent's plus loan, so my school actually gave me the unsubsidized loan that Independents get, along with the Subsidized loan that the dependent students get.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

I was 23 years old when I started attending a nursing program (LVN/LPN) and, although I was out of my parents' house and living independently with my own income, I was still considered a dependent student due to being under the age of 25. My parents are also from a working class/lower middle class background. My father works full-time at a well-known home improvement store and my mother is unemployed and disabled.

My entire tuition was financed with Sallie Mae private student loans. I had no cosigner, but my credit was good enough to qualify for them by myself. While in school, I lived off credit cards, my savings, and unemployment extensions. It was enough to pay my mortgage and other bills, and I completed the LVN program several years ago.

I am now enrolled in an LPN-to-RN transition ADN program and will graduate in a few months. I have been working full-time on the weekends as an LVN while attending school full time during the week.

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Just a thought... but have you tried working while going to school? I have been working (full-time) in a very challenging career, and I have also taken a minimum of 9 credit hrs a semester. This is in addition to having a child, fiance, house, and three cats & two dogs. I have maintened a very good GPA, and felt that I was truly able to manage my time effectively to balance work and school.

I will be starting the nursing program in January, and will then go to part-time (in hopefully a less demanding role), but I know with good time mgmt I will be able to balance the two.

It is challenging, but it is very doable. I still have to take out student loans to pay for classes, and it doesn't cover all of the expenses, so that comes out of pocket for me.

Hope everything works out for you!!!

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I currently work at a university so I'll try to answer a few questions for you. It's almost impossible to change a dependency status with the feds. Dependency overrides can't be done if the parents don't feel it's their responibility to fund college. If, a studen tor parent has recently lost a job, then it's good to talk to FA at your school about making adjustments to your FAFSA since that IS a possibility. Sorry! Pell Grants are need based grants so unless there has been a major change in your parent's financial status, you would have been considered for those with your grant-in-aid package. What types of aid did they offer? Sub Stafford? Unsub Stafford? FSEOG? If they offered you the sub Stafford, ask about an unsub stafford. Also, keep in mind that both of the Staffords can increase as you go from a 2nd to a 3rd or 4th year student. Have you looked into on campus jobs? Most are limited to 20 hours per week, and they are flexible insofar as they will work around your class schedule. Check with HR at the college if this is something that you're interested in.

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Like most of my fellow students I worked full time while going to nursing school. Sometimes I had two jobs.

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Get married ;)

Seriously though, this was a huge problem when my husband (boyfriend at the time) was trying to go to school. Mom couldn't help, dad didn't want to, and we had to tell them they were faxing tax records directly to the financial aid office in order to file FAFSA. Obviously, the money wasn't enough and he ended up dropping out.

Since then, his mom cosigned a private loan for him to go to paramedic school (we'd put him through EMT school already). He's been working about a year now. Anyway to get a cosignor? Or try to get a private loan on your own if you have good credit? Look at a cheaper school?

Check out fastweb, the HRSA scholarship (you can find it with google). Can you get EMTR or CNA certified and try to work somewhere that offers PT tuition benefits?

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