How does finanical aid work?

[Ellie78]

I applied for financial aid and although I was initially rejected, I am apealing. I reviewed my appeal with my financial aid director and he said it was a "slam dunk."

So my questions are ...

How long does it take to go through after you've been approved?

After you pay the college, do you get any of the excess funds to help meet living expenses? If so, how long does this take?

[winneythepooh7]

It usually takes a few weeks after classes begin for everything to go through. As long as the school knows your financial aid is coming in, you should be fine (don't count on getting that "spending money to live on" though for a few weeks. Keep in mind they may divide up the amount of finicial aid you get "per semester" and you may not get a whole lot to live on, especially depending on where your school is located.

I went to grad school in NYC and worked the whole time, but my parents also took out a private loan for me to meet my high cost of living expenses since I didn't make that much money at my job.

I graduated from undergrad in 1998, but from what I've been hearing, tuition is rising but Stafford loans and such are not rising to cover the costs of living.

[cheshrcarol]

Why were you rejected? Usually you only get rejected from federal loans if you have a problem with your fafsa or your defaulted on students loans in the past.

I'm a grad student right now and the loans I have are the federal ones. The total amount for stafford loans this year was $18,500 - $10k unsubsidized, $8500 subsidized. That is then divided in half and gets paid to the school each semester for my tuition. Any remaining balance comes to me in a check. Next year the maximum stafford amt is $20,500

[beeblebrox]

Why were you rejected? Usually you only get rejected from federal loans if you have a problem with your fafsa or your defaulted on students loans in the past.

I'm a grad student right now and the loans I have are the federal ones. The total amount for stafford loans this year was $18,500 - $10k unsubsidized, $8500 subsidized. That is then divided in half and gets paid to the school each semester for my tuition. Any remaining balance comes to me in a check. Next year the maximum stafford amt is $20,500

I had those same stafford loans, only I opted out of the unsubsidized, to pay for the bare minimum for classes and have less loan repayment to deal with it. I'm paying off a total of $17,000 in subsidized loans.

Cheshcarol, I'm assuming that you're a full time student so that you could get the federal loans. I'm thinking of going back to graduate school for an MLS and will probably have to look into private loans because I'll be working full time and taking a class or two a semester or quarter depending on where I'll go.

[AshleyJordan]

I was rejected for need-based aid as a grad student. . . and I was making about $30,000 in NYC. That doesn't go very far in this town!

I was still able to get merit-based aid and federal student loans, but need-based aid is hard to come by sometimes.

[NewMrs.]

Why were you rejected? Usually you only get rejected from federal loans if you have a problem with your fafsa or your defaulted on students loans in the past.



One of my neighbors told me recently that his undergrad daughter was rejected for federal loans for next year. When he went to find out why, he learned that his wife had an outstanding hospital bill that they were not aware of that had been turned over to a collection agency. Apparently they had been under the impression that all of the bills from this treatment had been taken care of by their insurance carrier, and they had no idea that this bill had fallen through the cracks. The bill was for something like $200, so he just paid it off to the collection agency to get rid of it and then had it straightened out with his daughter's financial aid office.

So these things happen.