Serious: Thinking about going back to school. Do's & don't about student loans?

TheKongoEmpire

TheKongoEmpire

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I need to get back in to school to finish this mech. eng degree. I'm 33 and don't want to be a 40 yo black man in America w/o a degree. Yes I'm a skilled tradesman in the HVAC industry but I don't feel like working my ass over into my golden years. I want to be the mechanical engineer techs complain about. I got 27 credits into my AA but my biggest but conquerable obstacle is math. I want to test into Calc 1 and continue from there. I'd be finishing my AA at a local CC before transferring to FAU—the cheapest public, 4-year uni in FL. I'll be damned if I get stuck in the abyss called student loan debt. Why do I want to take out loans then? SO I can stop working and attend fulltime. Eventually my savings will be depleted. All that said, what say y'all?
 
tater

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Go to the guard

Oh and check out CLEP and DSST tests. I tested out of damn near half of my degree. If you have basic knowledge on a lot of subjects you can pass them. It's almost not even fair. The more difficult ones I have a site I used to study and it's mostly people brain dumping the questions. I'll PM you if interested. The tests are $100 and some come with free retests if you fail. Honestly, if you don't do this you're an idiot. I wish I would have known about them sooner. It will save you thousands of dollars.

Most schools take them and the community college certainly does.
 
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GPBear

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First thing you should do is fill out a FAFSA, which you can do online. I think it’s due in October, but it doesn’t hurt to fill it out early. Your community college should have advisors, so talk to them because other students have probably had similar circumstances.

Secondly, student loans for undergraduates are subsidized, which means they don’t start accruing interest until after you graduate. The fact you have a job or money in the bank already might mean you can’t get grant money that other students might, Not to mention checking out scholarships that might relate to your field; there’s a lot of scholarships for students who work etc.

If I were you, I’d seriously consider keeping your job and taking online classes until you knock out all the basic prerequisites. At 22 credits, if you want to get an associates or bachelors there’s gonna be a lot of non-mechanical engineering classes you’re gonna need to have just for degree requirements. Since the pandemic has a lot of schools go online, you should be able to finish the Associates entirely online. You’d be taking full time credits, but since you don’t have to go to class you can finish it on your own time.

So I’d try and do easy electives online first while holding down a job, and wait til you have to start using the student loans. Then once you transfer, you’re only going to need 2 years worth of student loans as opposed to 4.
 
Dafunkdoc_Unlimited

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Oh, if your math skills are lacking.....

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Khan Academy | Free Online Courses, Lessons & Practice

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:blessed:​
 
TheKongoEmpire

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GPBear said:
First thing you should do is fill out a FAFSA, which you can do online. I think it’s due in October, but it doesn’t hurt to fill it out early. Your community college should have advisors, so talk to them because other students have probably had similar circumstances.

Secondly, student loans for undergraduates are subsidized, which means they don’t start accruing interest until after you graduate. The fact you have a job or money in the bank already might mean you can’t get grant money that other students might, Not to mention checking out scholarships that might relate to your field; there’s a lot of scholarships for students who work etc.

If I were you, I’d seriously consider keeping your job and taking online classes until you knock out all the basic prerequisites. At 22 credits, if you want to get an associates or bachelors there’s gonna be a lot of non-mechanical engineering classes you’re gonna need to have just for degree requirements. Since the pandemic has a lot of schools go online, you should be able to finish the Associates entirely online. You’d be taking full time credits, but since you don’t have to go to class you can finish it on your own time.

So I’d try and do easy electives online first while holding down a job, and wait til you have to start using the student loans. Then once you transfer, you’re only going to need 2 years worth of student loans as opposed to 4.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm saying: I've taken all the easy classes and electives. Now, everything else has a Calc prereq. I've even done Intro to Eng.
 
TheKongoEmpire

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tater said:
Go to the guard

Oh and check out CLEP and DSST tests. I tested out of damn near half of my degree. If you have basic knowledge on a lot of subjects you can pass them. It's almost not even fair. The more difficult ones I have a site I used to study and it's mostly people brain dumping the questions. I'll PM you if interested. The tests are $100 and some come with free retests if you fail. Honestly, if you don't do this you're an idiot. I wish I would have known about them sooner. It will save you thousands of dollars.

Most schools take them and the community college certainly does.
Click to expand...
I'll look into DSST. The reason I didn't consider CLEP is because I can take the PERT (then the AAF) to test into Calc. 1. Unless you're telling me to test OUT of Calc 1.
 
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