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When I was starting college and filling out financial aid, I was happy that I was even offered enough loans to cover college. I’m the first in my family to go to college and we were low-income. So, I accepted all my Stafford loans offered to me; sometimes I even was offered an additional Stafford loan, due to my parents’ rejection for a Parent Plus Loan. A few days ago I realized I haven’t finished my exit loan counseling. I remember getting a little paper slip about it during the graduation fair, however… my mind just blanked on doing it. Or how to even do it. I finally started doing it; but I was shocked! I took about $30,000 out in federal loans. According to the loan repayment calculator I had to do, I will be paying roughly $42,000 over 10 years! That’s $400-600 a month it calculated. WHAT????

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I am student teaching this semester as I have previously mentioned. It is not recommended to work while student teaching, simple because you are already working 40 hours a week. However, this can be extremely difficult when you are not financially supported by others. Which is my case. I am paying for school myself and my food and other expenses are paid for by me. I worked at KEY Zone this past year at the same school I will be now student teaching at. I did not want to continue working there during student teaching because it would turn my “school” days into 11 hour days… Which I definitely couldn’t handle! So I am looking for something that I can do on the weekends. I will continue blogging but I also need an additional income. So lately I have been keeping my eye open for more flexible work study positions on campus.

During the financial aid process, Stafford and Perkins loans are offered to you by the government. I only am offered Stafford loans, because my household does not fit below the income limit for Perkins. I receive offers for subsidized and subsidized loans. The subsidized loans do not have interest building up until after I graduate, while the latter does. You can only take out so much with each type of loan, and that’s designated by your financial aid letter. If you still need to take out loans after that, you have to take out private loans. The first two years of college, I was very pro-Stafford loan. I even received additional Stafford loans because I was denied for the Parent Plus loan. I thought to myself that this gave me time to truly experience college, and not be working away my life like some of my friends were doing. I could *totally* worry about this money later down the road! So now as my interest on my unsubsidized loans has started building up, plus the fact that a year from now I will be starting to pay back the roughly $30,000 I will have taken out, I am definitely sending curse words flying. What was I thinking?! Thankfully, I can have up to $5,000 of my loans forgiven through the teacher loan forgiveness programs, but still! Now I am much more adamant about paying back my loans whenever I have extra money and paying out of pocket the last few thousand. I’ve been working work study jobs for the past two years, so I should have more money put towards paying off loans, but I don’t. That is the goal to work on this year.

As a high school senior, you’re always thinking of how to fund school. You go to your high school’s scholarship night, you apply to a million generalized scholarships, get financial aid, all that good, wonderful stuff. People always forget once you’re in college you can still get scholarships! I won one from high school last year that was $1000. Last night I spent a majority of my time looking up scholarships and brainstorming how to present myself in them. I always used to think finding scholarships for college students was hard – I was wrong! I found five I’ll be applying to. Some even were specific to juniors and seniors. I’ve got a good arsenal of recommendation letters and leadership roles under my belt, let’s see how this goes!

One thing I love about work study jobs is their flexibility. Work study is offered for those who qualify through FAFSA and is essentially student employment. There’s tons of work study jobs: food service, department assistants, gym attendants, auditorium ushers, even seamstresses for the theater! I work in the Social Work Department as an assistant/errand girl/Master of Table Decor. Usually you arrive to your work study with a set of tasks. Once you’re done or if there’s nothing to do, people usually are allowed to do homework at the more office like jobs. Also they offer a lot of flexibility with classes, group projects, anything that randomly conflicts with work that time. With work study, they know school always comes first.