Financial Aid for Dummies

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by remlinger, Aug 19, 2009.

Loading...
  1. remlinger

    remlinger New Member

    Hi

    I've been lurking on this forum for a while now and I have a question regarding financial aid.

    I was recently accepted to Troy and I'll be pursuing a bachelors degree. I applied for financial aid a couple of weeks ago and Troy just sent me the reward letter. I qualified for the maximum, but I'm confused about a couple of things.

    At Troy, there are five nine-week terms. For some reason, the Pell grant is only disbursed for four of those terms (T1, 2, 3, and 4). The same goes for Stafford loans. I'll be starting my first term in January, which is term 3. The tuition is $1540. My Pell grant will cover $875 of it, and an subsidized loan for $875 will cover the rest along with books. The same goes for Term 4. However, as I mentioned, there is no financial aid available for term 5 as it's disbursed over the course of 4 terms rather than 5 ($875 per term for a max of $3500).

    So, can I take out an unsubsidized Stafford loan to cover the tuition for the 5th term? I assume that the loan would have to be taken out along with the subsidized loans for my 3rd and 4th terms.

    I know that the interest starts accruing on the unsub loans as soon as the funds are disbursed, but is there a minimum monthly payment on these loans? I was planning on paying just the interest on the unsubs until 6 months after I graduate. Then I will start making higher payments.

    Thanks guys.
     
  2. Cakes

    Cakes New Member

    what i read is; no payments At All needed for Stafford loans until after graduation according to their website. not even on interest:

    http://www.staffordloan.com/

    also, i am wondering about the part where Stafford would not be covering the '5th' term. it Might appear that they don't since the Stafford accounting office only disburses at beginning of each semester, i.e. it LOOKS like they are only paying for those two semesters since they only disburse twice a year but the payment(s) are big enough altogether so that it covers the whole year.

    here is more pages about stafford loans:
    http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=stafford+loan&ei=utf-8&fr=b1ie7
     

Share This Page