Anyone know when tuition bills come?

[jess427m]

Ok, just battled with financial aid for an hour--if any of you are not taking out enough loans to cover your entire tuition, e.g. you were expecting scholarships and/or your own contribution to count for some of it, you should know this:

When you go to pay your tuition during orientation, there will be a button for "apply financial aid"

This ONLY applies grants/loans but NOT scholarships to your tuition.  And for whatever portion of your tuition that accounts for, it will take off your amount due.

But- the remaining amount, including whatever scholarships you are awarded, you have to pay yourself, because they refuse to apply scholarships towards your tuition.  You have to pony up the money and then wait to get paid back a week later when they release the checks.  This is why there is the option for the tuition loan or whatever it's called, because they have such an ass-backwards system at UT that I (and I'm guessing many other people) are going to have to take out a short term (the length of a week) loan for the amount of our scholarship money just so our classes don't get dropped.

My mentor said she had to do this last year too, and it's a real pain in the ass.

That is absolutely ridiculous. It's such a hassle that I'm thinking of not accepting my scholarship since it's not for that much money and I'd rather not have to deal with it.

[jess427m]

That is absolutely ridiculous. It's such a hassle that I'm thinking of not accepting my scholarship since it's not for that much money and I'd rather not have to deal with it.

Please tell me you didn't just say that, when there's a whole line of people who received nothing and who'd be ecstatic to jump through a few hoops for some free money. 

It's unfortunate that they're making it such a pain in the ass - it's either a law school thing or a recent thing, since I didn't experience this hassle with the engineering school back when.  At the same time, anyone who experiences this "problem" is, ironically, quite fortunate.

I understand that I should be happy to be getting a scholarship at all and I am, especially since I didn't expect to as an out of state resident. But, the financial aid office at UT is so incredibly disorganized and not user friendly that dealing with them always results in bad moods, wasted time and usually misinformation. I find it maddening that the staff who answers the phones there and is charged with assisting students never actually seems to know what is going on and that information doesn't seem to be provided to students in a timely manner. Something like this should really have been explicitly communicated to students when they were notified of their scholarship or shortly thereafter.

Jumping through hoops is the last thing I want to be doing during the first week of classes when there is SOOOOO much else going on.

 Don't get me wrong, UT is a great school and I'm happy to be going here but I just wish basic things like financial aid weren't made so hard for us.

[catz4885]

so basically for being an idiot I'm rewarded with less hassle?  SWEET

ignorance is bliss, baby.

join the club. i'm in

Haha, so speak the 180 and 179 w/ full rides.

[jess427m]

If you aren't getting that much in scholarship, this won't apply to you Jess.  This only applies if your other financial aid doesn't cover your tuition.... Since you make it seem that you didn't get that much, then I wouldn't worry about it.

It's just enough that I have to shell out about $750 to the school since I didn't max out my loans for the year. So I can either pay the $750 to the school and get it back in a week or I can change my loans to get a bit more, avoid the entire hassle and then buy a little bit of a nicer car....

So tempting, but alas I must do the more fiscally responsible thing. I'm just going to suck it up, pay the school the money and then get it back a week later.

[Nixlimited]

It's just enough that I have to shell out about $750 to the school since I didn't max out my loans for the year. So I can either pay the $750 to the school and get it back in a week or I can change my loans to get a bit more, avoid the entire hassle and then buy a little bit of a nicer car....

So tempting, but alas I must do the more fiscally responsible thing. I'm just going to suck it up, pay the school the money and then get it back a week later.

Go for the nicer car!

[Felsen]

I'm doing the fiscally responsible thing by taking out as many government supported loans as I possibly can.  I either get to pay for school with borrowed money at low interest rates, or I have to tap my life savings.  I'm betting that the stock market will perform better than the nominal interest rates on the government loans.

I'm waiting on the new car till after I graduate.  Unfortunately, by then it will probably be a mini-van for my wife.

[jess427m]

Either way, I have to buy a car since my fiance and I are sharing one car now and it is a pain. I decided to take the extra $ for the year in the loan, especially since we are looking at moving to a nicer apartment so my share of the rent will be more anyways.

Thanks for helping me to think it through a little more clearly.

[Felsen]

Note, that for car loans, I'd probably still choose to get a loan for the car, since you can typically find someplace to get good interest rates (3% range) on a new car.  That's even lower than everything except the Staffor subsidized loan (where the government pays for the interest till you gradaute).

[jess427m]

Note, that for car loans, I'd probably still choose to get a loan for the car, since you can typically find someplace to get good interest rates (3% range) on a new car.  That's even lower than everything except the Staffor subsidized loan (where the government pays for the interest till you gradaute).

That's my plan, now I just get to put a little more down.

[Felsen]

Unless that little more down lowered the loan % even more, I'd personally just keep as much money on the low % car loan as possible.  This all depends on the % you get, and whether you have stocks/bonds/CDs that can outperform the loan rate, of course.  You can get CDs for 5+% right now, so any loan you can get for cheaper than that I'd stick the excess at least in a CD and come out a bit ahead.