a dose of cold water

[winterbadger]

I got the first communication regarding financial aid for Glasgow, and I'm more than a little dismayed.

Maybe they're just making the numbers look big so as to give me the maximum flexibility in getting loans, but the costs they quote are much higher than I was expecting, including some of the costs they quote openly on their website.

For tuition fees, they're citing £16,500. I could have sworn that the last time I checked, the fee quote was just under £13,000. But maybe my memory is faulty.

For cost of living, they're citing £14.700. The international student portion of their website says, in regard to cost of living, "We would recommend allowing £8400 for a single student per year and a minimum of £12,000 for a married couple." Now, £8,400 seemed very low to me, so I was assuming it would be more. But nearly twice as much more?

In addition, they are using an exchange rate 13% higher than the current rate. Again, this may be so that I can get the largest possible loan, on the theory that if I don't need it all I can repay it faster, and if they set the bar too low I may not be able to get a large enough loan. But it's startling.

So instead of what I expected to see, a figure around $33,000, they're suggesting that I apply for loans of $53,000. That's more than half again what I had expected this to cost.

I've applied for several scholarships, which I won't hear from for a few more weeks, but I have no particular expectations there, and even if I got all of them, they wouldn't make up the difference.

The rate of interest for Stafford Unsubsidized loans (1%) and Plus loans (4%) is very reasonable. But, still...

Comments

[peatsmoke.livejournal.com]

Eesh! What an awful bait-and-switch, even if it is a ploy to allow you to get larger loans.

[kmusser]

My grad school in Oregon did the same thing - the loan people want you to take out the largest loan possible because they make more money that way, it's up to you to decide whether you really need that much - even if you don't it can be a good thing to take some extra if you think you might need it as student loans do tend to have a lower interest rates than most other types of loan.

[winterbadger]

Thanks, Karl--good to know. And, yes, it's hard to beat those interest rates.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

That seems like a high cost of living to me. I'd expect a student to be able to live on far less than that.