I start school for Computer Science at Metro State in January but my girlfriend is telling me that I may get enough through tuition to buy a macbook. Anyone know how this is possible? I'm out of the military and have never used tuition before, and if possible would love to do this rather than selling bike to buy a book.
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getting a macbook for school ASAP
- Thread starter chukwithak
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Well, I can't speak for your particular school, but I've been to 3 different colleges (I know, I'm a screwup 
). In NY, the way it's done is you have a 'cost of attending' limit that can be reached via financial aid. I will give you my example for reference. My colleges cost of living is $8,700/semester. This includes costs such as tuition, room and board, books, living costs, etc. Tuition costs $1,750/semester, books $500/semester, and I don't have much other costs than that, since I live at home. They give $1924/semester in Federal Pell Grant, $25xx/semester in NY Tuition Assistance Program Award, and, I can take out various loans, such as a Federal Stafford Subsidized loan for $1750/semester, and a Federal Stafford Unsubsidized loan for $1000/semester. Add all this up, and it's about $7200/semester (about $4500/semester without the loans), for ~$2250 in costs. All that financial aid money gets deposited into your student account, at which a certain point they will refund that money to you via a check. In my case, I took out the Stafford Subsidized loan only, since you don't get charged interest, at all, until you graduate and it will be paid off by then. So in my case, I'll get a check in the mail for about $4000. I'll have to pay $1750 of that back, but I currently need it for car/gas costs, the rest goes towards a nice new macbook pro. This is pretty much standard across all colleges in the US, but financial aid may be different via state, NY TAP is for NY only, obviously. Also, you get a lot more financial aid if a.) you are going to a school in your home state, and b.) it's a public school. Out of state, you're going to get charged a ton of money, private school, the same. Hope you are able to understand everything I said, sorry if it's confusing.
Edit: Make sure you apply for FAFSA ASAP, aka, right now. It takes awhile for the information to process and get verified by your school and so on. http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ is the website, you can read up on it there, and submit the info online there.
). In NY, the way it's done is you have a 'cost of attending' limit that can be reached via financial aid. I will give you my example for reference. My colleges cost of living is $8,700/semester. This includes costs such as tuition, room and board, books, living costs, etc. Tuition costs $1,750/semester, books $500/semester, and I don't have much other costs than that, since I live at home. They give $1924/semester in Federal Pell Grant, $25xx/semester in NY Tuition Assistance Program Award, and, I can take out various loans, such as a Federal Stafford Subsidized loan for $1750/semester, and a Federal Stafford Unsubsidized loan for $1000/semester. Add all this up, and it's about $7200/semester (about $4500/semester without the loans), for ~$2250 in costs. All that financial aid money gets deposited into your student account, at which a certain point they will refund that money to you via a check. In my case, I took out the Stafford Subsidized loan only, since you don't get charged interest, at all, until you graduate and it will be paid off by then. So in my case, I'll get a check in the mail for about $4000. I'll have to pay $1750 of that back, but I currently need it for car/gas costs, the rest goes towards a nice new macbook pro. This is pretty much standard across all colleges in the US, but financial aid may be different via state, NY TAP is for NY only, obviously. Also, you get a lot more financial aid if a.) you are going to a school in your home state, and b.) it's a public school. Out of state, you're going to get charged a ton of money, private school, the same. Hope you are able to understand everything I said, sorry if it's confusing. Edit: Make sure you apply for FAFSA ASAP, aka, right now. It takes awhile for the information to process and get verified by your school and so on. http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ is the website, you can read up on it there, and submit the info online there.
Yeah FAFSA is finished and has been finished for a while. I'm just waiting to start in January. Yeah, bummer I'm moving to CO for this. My first year will be out of state, but I'm changing residence to CO ASAP so that next year I don't plan to be "out of state".
Ah, out of state then, you most likely won't get much of a refund. Chances are, you will actually have to pay. My sister went out of state for her third and fourth year of college, to a private school which made it even worse. The third year, she had to take out loans for ~$8,000 since she was considered out of state, but her fourth year she was considered in-state since you only had to live there for one year (Maryland), and got a refund of $5,000/semester, which she used to pay off her loans and still had $1500 left after interest, so it still worked out fine. Chances are though, you'll have to pay for your first year, maybe not much, but sometimes it can be a lot. It usually gets better over time though, as long as you change your permanent address to somewhere in that state. You would have to check with your college to find out how long they require you to be "in-state" to consider you for in-state tuition.