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So I'm sitting here strategizing how much to accept from my financial aid package. I'm trying to minimize the amount I'm trying to borrow in the end and obviously I only have ballpark figures for how much I think I need. If my goal is to minimize loans, then would it be wise to maybe shoot on the lower end on the range of loans I need to borrow and then borrowing more if needed later? In fact, at this point I'm thinking about purposely undershooting it to the point that I KNOW I have to borrow more for spring semester or even earlier, since I think I would rather realize I need to borrow more money later than to have extra money on my hands that I didn't actually need that was accruing interest from day 1.

Any tips?

If you are talking federal loans, typically you have to borrow the same amount every semester for that year. So I don't know if your plan would work.

You can borrow up to the full cost of attending but if you do not use it all I believe you can "return" the left over at the end of the year...I could be wrong tho so someone may need to verify/correct that for me

justhockey31 wrote:You can borrow up to the full cost of attending but if you do not use it all I believe you can "return" the left over at the end of the year...I could be wrong tho so someone may need to verify/correct that for me

yea this is correct for my school but i assumed that interest starts accruing from when I borrow it and I want to plan it better so I try to not have leftovers that I should return but rather need more aid during the school year that I can apply for.

BriaTharen wrote:If you are talking federal loans, typically you have to borrow the same amount every semester for that year. So I don't know if your plan would work.

Really? Based on Q and As with my own school, my impression is that this is not true, even with federal loans, i.e., you can borrow different amounts at different times (up to the annual limit specified in your financial aid letter), depending on your needs. I was told that it's fine to take out just a portion of my stafford loans now (to be disbursed once for Fall), then take out more later (even during Fall semester) if I discover a shortfall. But I didn't get into the finer details with them and maybe they misunderstood what I was asking. I'd be interested to hear a definitive answer on this.

You can borrow less now and more later. However, you will pay fees each time you take a new loan. Basically, you would be doubling your fees - and the fees are substantial.

dumb question--between federal subsidized, federal unsubsidized, and gradplus, which ones does interest start accruing on immediately and which after graduating?

nelaw2010 wrote:You can borrow less now and more later. However, you will pay fees each time you take a new loan. Basically, you would be doubling your fees - and the fees are substantial.

I asked my financial aid office about this too. They said it doesn't matter, because the origination fees are set as a percentage of the loan. That is, there aren't "transaction fees" each time. So if you take out $5000 now and $5000 later, you pay the same fees as if you had taken out $10,000 just the first time. But maybe things are different at different schools (using different lenders)?

tipler4213 wrote:dumb question--between federal subsidized, federal unsubsidized, and gradplus, which ones does interest start accruing on immediately and which after graduating?

Federal unsubsidized and GradPlus start accruing immediately