Yes, that is what I am asking. My concern stems from the requirement that all federal student loans be used for educational expenses. Don't want them to view it as robbing Peter (government) to pay Paul (bank).
but is this the portion that's supposed to be used for living expenses?
Using it to pay down your credit card balance is no different than putting it into a savings account for later use, really. (Except the interest benefit to you is greater.)
You have access to that credit, again, for use sometime in the future should you need it.
If it's the money for living expenses, I think realistically you have to figure that there's not really a lot of strings attached. You could use the money to run the A/C in your apartment down to 50 degrees, then eat PB&J sandwiches every day if you wanted to. I've never heard of anybody being audited on what they used their student loan money for.
So long as you legitimately are a student and so long as you are entitled to the money, what you do with it is largely up to you. In a philosophical sense, so long as it's used in such a manner that it allows you to sustain yourself while in law school, I can't imagine that anybody would ever quibble with you about it.
You're trying to do the right thing, but frankly, if you used the money to drive 100 miles to your Mom & Dad's house every weekend to do your laundry, nobody would care. There's not a requirement that you use the money optimally. Just that you use it to cover living expenses.
Is the CC debt a living expense? The periodic payments on it clearly are, especially since you're prohibited from working during 1L and defaulting could have dire consequences for your future. Paying off the entire balance? Enters a shade of gray if a person is bent on taking an excessively harsh and inflexible tack, but it's a shade of gray nobody will ever check up on or care about.
Just my two cents. Obviously not legal advice. However, I think you're worrying over nothing.
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