Financial Aid

Financial aid, a subject that matters so much to some college students, and not at all to others.

I'm one of those students it matters to. My parents agreed to pay for the first year of my college, however, at the end of my senior year of high school, we found out my dad had prostate cancer. That one incident wouldn't have set them back too much, but this came after three years of him having at least one major illness (off work from two to three months). So, my parents paid for the first semester, and then sort of defaulted on the second semester without telling me.

This year, I applied for loans to cover the 4,000 dollars (approximately) each semester that was not covered by grants or federal loans, using my brother as a cosigner. The loans were approved, and then I found out that my parents hadn't paid for the second semester of last year. I recieved another 2500 in prorated (is that even the right word?) loans, leaving me with 1500 to cover. My parents assured me that they would pay for that remaining amount of money, however, it's almost January and they haven't. My mom keeps insisting she did and that finaid has messed up, but it's been so long since she started that claim, it's getting a little ridiculous. I now need to come up with 1500 dollars, so I believe I'm going to have to use my credit card to pay the amount off, at least temporarily. I'm really not excited about doing that, but I will if I have to.

I figure that if it's necessary, I have been doing cashduck and dealbarbiepays as a way to make money. I've been bringing in about 200 dollars a month from those sites, I could probably make more if I spent more time, or did some of the trial offers. My money from those sites is already paying down my credit card debt. Plus I'll be bringing in about $200 from work, and I can probably dedicate at least $75 to credit card fund. I guess it would be manageable, but I've spent all this time paying down my credit card debt, that bring back over 1,000, heck over 2,000 where it's never been before, would be very upsetting.

Oh well, thus is life, and thus is the cycle of debt. But I will be out one day!