Caviar, Four Star Daydream

I kind of hate to do these neurotic posts about financial problems, but. . . sometimes, they're all I have to talk about. Plus, they're certainly a shaping feature in my academic and creative careers, so uninteresting to anyone but me or not, they belong here.

That uninspiring introduction made, on with it.

In the fall, I applied for graduate PLUS loans. This is a newish program for grad students who've exceeded their federal aggregate amounts for Stafford loans -- and let's not forget, that limit hasn't been raised since 1992, so I am hardly the only person coming up against it. I know several people in my program who have, in fact. The government approved me for $13k and since I was hoping to go the year without working, I went in to talk to our financial aid people to see if I could get that raised at all, or whether I should look at private loans, or what. The woman I spoke to asked me my rent, usual bills, and so forth and said, "Let's see if we can get you a bigger budget." I didn't hear from her again, but called our automated phone system a couple days later and found that I had been approved for a surprising $10k per semester, in Stafford loans. More than fine! You don't want to take out more debt than you have to, no -- but at this point, not having to worry about money, and being able to focus on doing the job market and then writing was ideal.

A couple weeks ago, I thought my spring loans should have posted and called to find out why they hadn't. I was told they were about to disburse, waited to find that out, then waited a few more days to see whether they were floating through the system or something. Went in to the financial aid office last Friday.

The guy I spoke to didn't say this, but I'm pretty sure that woman wasn't ever supposed to have changed my budget in the first place. At some point, someone saw my big loan amounts in my friendlier loan category and fixed it, restoring my limit to $13k for the year via PLUS, and rescinding the Stafford loans I'd already had disbursed. This left me with a $10k bill to UB. Even after the PLUS loans I was supposed to get, this leaves me with $3k for the spring.

But wait, there's more.

When I went in Friday, the aid officer told me I had initially only had $8500k via PLUS put up for me, and still needed to request the other $4500 (these are slightly loose figures; I didn't write down the change). I did that while I was there and dutifully waited to see these disburse, while my bank account crept back toward zero, as it does when one doesn't put in any money. I thought things were taken care of, at least to get me above zero so I could figure out what to do with the rest of the shortfall. I looked up some information on private loans. They don't look great, but I need to finish and I need to live while I do that.

Today, I called again. I was told that while the $4500 should post tomorrow, I had never been fully approved for the $8500. I need a cosigner. I'll have to find someone to cosign, get that processed, and hope to get it approved even to pay off my debt to UB for the fall, incurred because they credited me with these loans I shouldn't have had in the first place. This is before my refund/excess comes over to my account, which is, as of today, overdrawn and racking up NSF fees on things that are on auto-pay.

I did end up picking up a part-time job doing web development for the medical school, and it's even cool, but I can't live on it alone. Nor can I live on it with the loans refund I'll eventually get, especially because I have two conferences to go to in February. You know, that month that starts in eleven days? AWP is the first weekend, and I haven't booked travel for it. Louisville is the weekend of the 24th, and I got a plane ticket (with a refund from the ticket I got for MLA, which went unused) but don't have a hotel room yet. I'm on the program for each of these, so skipping out will be a poor option.

So I currently need to 1.) find a cosigner for this federal grad PLUS loan; my only likely option there is my parents, and I don't really know whether they'll do that. 2.) Find some bank that wants to loan a single woman with staggering amounts of debt and shaky future employment prospects a few more thousand student-loan dollars, which will, at the least, also require me to have a cosigner. It will likely be high-interest and have brutal repayment policies attached to it. 3.) Acquire about $300 emergency cash to get a plane ticket to DC before they go up more -- Southwest, bless their heart-shaped logo, still has seats at that price, which isn't bad. 4.) Starve in the meantime and get very little dissertation work done, because of whatever hangup I have that makes it so hard for me to work at home.

5.) ???

I can't even tell you how much I wish the school could just put me back in whatever inappropriate budget category that aid officer put me in, back in August. I would promise not to complain. Ever.

On the chance that I can't get a private loan, which I suspect to be a definite likelihood, I don't know what I'll do for the rest of the semester. I don't know how/when I'll be able to finish.

And none of this even touches what happens to me once I graduate.