winterbadger | a dose of cold water

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...