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As you can guess by the thread title, I'm curious about being able to take out loans for the health insurance portion of the student expense budget if I'm covered by my parents' insurance (thanks, Obama!).

Do I have to justify my budget to sign up for loans or can I just elect to take the full student budget, no questions asked? I'd use the extra $2,000 for a computer and whatever other expenses come up.

Thanks, and excuse my present ignorance on loans!

02889 wrote:As you can guess by the thread title, I'm curious about being probabo take out loans for the health insurance portion of the student expense budget if I'm covered by my parents' insurance (thanks, Obama!).

Do I have to justify my budget to sign up for loans or can I just elect to take the full student budget, no questions asked? I'd use the extra $2,000 for a computer and whatever other expenses come up.

Thanks, and excuse my present ignorance on loans!

I doubt there's anything to prevent you. Except for the teeny fact that it's probably fraud.

Doesn't your school's loan budget include a computer? Mine did.

rinkrat19 wrote:

02889 wrote:As you can guess by the thread title, I'm curious about being probabo take out loans for the health insurance portion of the student expense budget if I'm covered by my parents' insurance (thanks, Obama!).

Do I have to justify my budget to sign up for loans or can I just elect to take the full student budget, no questions asked? I'd use the extra $2,000 for a computer and whatever other expenses come up.

Thanks, and excuse my present ignorance on loans!

I doubt there's anything to prevent you. Except for the teeny fact that it's probably fraud.

Doesn't your school's loan budget include a computer? Mine did.

Fraud? How so? Is it also illegal to take out loans for your full room & board allotment if you knew you were going to come in under budget? It seems like if you pay back the loans it's unlikely to be fraud, but that's just uninformed intuition.

As for the laptop specifically, yes, I'm sure I could get a budget adjustment for a laptop if that isn't already built in.

02889 wrote:

rinkrat19 wrote:

02889 wrote:As you can guess by the thread title, I'm curious about being probabo take out loans for the health insurance portion of the student expense budget if I'm covered by my parents' insurance (thanks, Obama!).

Do I have to justify my budget to sign up for loans or can I just elect to take the full student budget, no questions asked? I'd use the extra $2,000 for a computer and whatever other expenses come up.

Thanks, and excuse my present ignorance on loans!

I doubt there's anything to prevent you. Except for the teeny fact that it's probably fraud.

Doesn't your school's loan budget include a computer? Mine did.

Fraud? How so? Is it also illegal to take out loans for your full room & board allotment if you knew you were going to come in under budget? It seems like if you pay back the loans it's unlikely to be fraud, but that's just uninformed intuition.

As for the laptop specifically, yes, I'm sure I could get a budget adjustment for a laptop if that isn't already built in.

Jesus, are you serious? It is fraud to take out $ given to you by the government for one thing with the intent of spending it on something else, period, whether that is borrowing $ for health insurance to buy a computer or purposely borrowing extra COL money to....take out useless $ at 8% interest? Taking out more than you need because you overestimated in GF the amount you need is different.

At my law school, you have to submit receipts for a computer if you're taking out loans for one. Same thing with health insurance, you have to submit something from your insurance provider demonstrating the cost of the plan for which you're borrowing.

So, unless you just want to upgrade your insurance to something better than what you have now, it doesn't really make sense for you.

ETA: yeah, what you'd like to do is called fraud. Also, we read numerous cases in professional responsibility where students used financial aid $ on non-school related expenses and then were not permitted to sit for the bar. So, risks and rewards.

cinephile wrote:At my law school, you have to submit receipts for a computer if you're taking out loans for one. Same thing with health insurance, you have to submit something from your insurance provider demonstrating the cost of the plan for which you're borrowing.

So, unless you just want to upgrade your insurance to something better than what you have now, it doesn't really make sense for you.

ETA: yeah, what you'd like to do is called fraud. Also, we read numerous cases in professional responsibility where students used financial aid $ on non-school related expenses and then were not permitted to sit for the bar. So, risks and rewards.

The part before your edit is all I was asking everyone, so thanks for that response. I don't know how it works when taking out loans (obviously), so I was asking if you take out loans for the total student expense budget, or if you're taking out the loans for each specific line item in the budget (like insurance). I would not claim I was paying for insurance if I wasn't, I was just asking if you take out the full loans regardless of which specific things you're spending on, or not.

Thanks everyone for your concern about potential fraud.

Yeah, pretty sure tons of people just take out the full amount just in case.