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Hi all,

Estimating I need about $3,400 to move into a new apartment when I start school and pay off my seat deposit debt.

Gas/hotels to drive my car to school/plane ticket to fly my cat: $800
Apartment deposit: $800
Seat deposit debt (3 schools): $1,000-$1,500 (currently $1,000 of this is on a credit card at 11.9% APR, and I expect to pay another $500 when i decide on a school.)
New bed: $300

Currently assets:
$2,600 in Roth IRA (really don't want to touch this)
$1,300 in an index fund (sort of don't want to touch this, hoping to buy a house after graduation
$0 in savings (I'll probably have a final paycheck from my job at about $2,000.

What is the basic process for applying disbursed loans to moving costs (if I need a quick lump sum in the space of two weeks?) Better to just withdraw my funds?

Might not get disbursed loans until classes start. I would just use a cc if those places will accept it (find a 0% intro card) and pay it off immediately when you get your funds.

lymenheimer wrote:Might not get disbursed loans until classes start. I would just use a cc if those places will accept it (find a 0% intro card) and pay it off immediately when you get your funds.

Cool. I can put gas and hotels and plane tix on credit card and gain points simultaneously.

So when I get unsub and gradPLUS disbursed, I can just take $20k for the year + $3,400, deposit lump sum into account, pay off credit card?

I guess a private loan up front for only $3.5k wouldn't be bad, but private loans are scary as fuk.

Your loan will be for one semester's worth of cost of living and then you can put it toward whatever educational costs you like. You can't add the cost for your deposit etc. on top of your cost of living, though.

HennessyVSOP wrote: So when I get gradPLUS disbursed, I can just take $20k for the year + $3,400

no, I do not think you can take out anything more than the living expense allowance. 20k for the year, actually 10k b.c you only get a term at a time, and if you want to pay off your moving expenses out of that you can.

^^^ you can only take up to COA less scholarship in loans. How you spend that money is up to you, but you won't get extra for reimbursing moving expenses.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Your loan will be for one semester's worth of cost of living and then you can put it toward whatever educational costs you like. You can't add the cost for your deposit etc. on top of your cost of living, though.

Your wording is confusing me.

I'm hoping to take $24k in loans per year --> 20.5 on the Unsub Fed loans, and 3.5k PLUS loans (or 12k --> 10.25k + 1.75k per semester.)

Lets say tuition is 40k. COA is estimated at 63k. I have a full scholarship.

Are you saying I am only allowed to take $23k / year in a combination of loans (20.5k in unsub and 2.5k in PLUS?)

Edit: yes it looks like that's what you're saying
I have been under the impression all along that you can take up to COA - i didn't realize this was minus any scholarship amount

I wrote that totally confusingly, but it looks like others addressed the real issues. I should have said, you take out a full year's COA, but you get it disbursed in two lots, at the beginning of each semester, so what I meant (but totally didn't say, sorry) was the loan *that you get disbursed to you in August* will be for one semester (then you get a second disbursement in January for the second semester).

And I think others have answered this, but yeah, if you're getting a scholarship of $40k and COA is $63k you can only take up to the COA, so that would be $23k, not $24k. Keep in mind that this money is supposed to go to educational expenses, so it can't go to, say, making car payments or some other kind of consumer debt (though I think paying off credit card debt that paid for living expenses for the semester is fine, you just can't get more on top of COA to pay for your deposit etc.).