Bush cut another student loan out

[GingerSnaps]

I found out today that the Bush crime administration has cut one of my student loans out.

Can anyone tell me if there is a website that you can go to in order to find out what loans have been cut out.

I got a note from my financial aid office at my College that one of my loans is no longer available because it has been taken away and they don't know if you can ever renew it.

My financial aid office isn't in until Monday and I have been told that the loan was worth $12,000.00 for 6 months and that I have to leave College until I can come up with the funds or apply for a personal loan and I am tapped out in that area.

I can't figure out which loan they discontinued.

If anyone knows can you please tell me.

I can't go back to class until I get a loan or I have to wait 6 months to reapply for a different.

I have no idea which loan they are talking about.

:grr:

[Heddi]

1. wow that's alot of money

what kind of school are you going to? I get MAYBE $800 A QUARTER and that barely covers tuition. THe $300 or so in books & supplies comes straight out of pocket. And mine is a federal loan too---the one where interest is on hold until you're out of school, or whatever.

If you find out about these loan cut-backs, please post it here cuz I'd like to know!

[GingerSnaps]

2. The loan is for one year

That is why I have to wait until Jan 2005 and I am not sure what they are talking about.

I am :scared:

[Heddi]

3. oooh!

I thought you got $12,000 a month for 6 months---that's still alot, though. But I guess I also go to a community college where tuition is a bit cheaper.

I feel your pain. School is a bitch to begin with since you can't really work a great paying 40 hour a week job while taking 21 credits at a time. THEN there's the expense and the time you put into it.

I would totally be flipping hamburgers right now if it weren't for the student loans I got...in the CLINTON ADMINISTRATION.....

[LostInAnomie]

4. Education is for the rich only...

...get used to it.

[NJCher]

5. Pell Grants?

I heard they were getting rid of the Pell Grants. As soon as I heard this, I winced because that is one of the most commons ones students get. I teach at a university and that's why I found this news distressing. I know many of my students will be unable to continue their educations without this assistance.

Maybe a search at the NY Times--their education department does a pretty good job of covering this.

If it's an old article and you can't get it for free, PM me and I'll retrieve it for you from Lexis-Nexis.


Cher

[testing123]

7. Pell grants have been cut

I went back to College and I had to leave because I can't afford to go.

They cut the Pell grants out a few months ago and the media never said a word about it.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

9. Pell Grants haven't been cut...

I just googled and went to look at my financial aid report. They're still there. I don't know where you heard that or who told you that, but they were fucking with you.
Duckie

[daisygirl]

8. Major cuts, it seems like

Last year my stepdaughter got the maximum allowable Pell grant and a couple of other federal and state grants. This year she's only getting about 30% of what she got last year.

I've been wondering if something happened to the Perkins loan program, too - last year she was offered one but not this year. (That could have been because she had a higher income this past year, but it really wasn't much more than the previous year.)

[testing123]

10. I heard that they cut the Perkins loan

I wonder if there is a website for all of the loan programs that we can look at.

[daisygirl]

11. After I posted I looked

and the 2004-2005 student aid handbook (PDF file at http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/attachments/siteresources/StudentGuideEnglish2004_05.pdf - they have an HTML version as well but it doesn't have any table of contents that I could find, so you have to wade through it in order) talks about Perkins loans, so theoretically they still exist. I wonder if the criteria for them have been tightened up, though.

I seem to recall reading a news story a few months ago about the financial aid formula being revised for the 2004-2005 school year in a way that would lead to cuts in grants and so on, but when I searched just now all I could find was this:
http://www.acenet.edu/hena/readArticle.cfm?articleID=210
which is dated last December and says that change was being temporarily blocked.

[notbush]

6. Are we talking about doing away with a loan ..or a grant?

[Nikia]

12. I'm glad that I went to college during Clinton

I got full federally subsidized financial aid. My college helped me make up most of the rest but an extra $12,000 per year might have been too much to ask for. Even if they were determined to cut these things, they should have cut it at a time so that returning students would know their situation and be able to make other plans if necessary. I know that we always got our financial aid package papers at towards end of the college so we would know if we were all set for next year and what summer plans we should make to make up the difference. Informing most of us later than that would have made it impossible for many of us to come back to school.
Go to the financial aid office on Monday. Find out what portion of your aid has been cut. Express your disappointment about all this. Express your concern for not only yourself but all your fellow students who might be affected. See if there is any other financial aid that they could offer you. I would say ask for a payment plan, but even by the month that is very expensive for a full time student, especially since you probably do pay some of your tuition as it is.
I'm sorry for you though.

[testing123]

13. They do this kind of thing in the middle of the year

That's the Bush plan!