How do student loans work? (grad school)
 

I will graduate soon with my B.S. and am interested in pursuing a graduate degree. My question is...

How do student loans work? More specifically, do they cover not only tuition, but living expenses, as well? Or am I going to have to work for a few years and save up some funds to cover my living expenses while using a student loan to cover school expenses?

Thanks for your info!

Tim

Student loans likely will cover some your tuition cost, but you will probably have to put up your own money to cover your living expenses, plus other school fees.

You can always apply for bursaries and scholarships.

Student loans in Canada (run by the government) for some reason reward people who don't work in the summer or during the year. If you even have the slightest amount of income, they will reduce your loan availability.

Here in the States, you will have lots of options for borrowing. The more you borrow, the more you will have to access expensive funds (i.e. high interest rates). The first 8 or 10 G usually is govt subsidized and does not rack up interest while you are in school; the next 8 or 10 G is low interest rate but still racks up interest while you are in school.

After that you will get into some really expensive shit.

Try to keep your loans as tight as possible. While you are in school it's tempting to think , what the hell, a few thousand extra won't hurt and it makes life so much easier now. Trust me, it's gonna hurt big time when it's time to repay.

I'm not sure which field your interested in, but as far as I can tell (being a graduate student in philosophy), you should be able to get some university to give you (not loan you) enough money to live on, in addition to covering your tuition. I know it's this way in the humanities and the sciences -- outside of this, I'm not quite sure. If you can't get some sort of deal like this, quite frankly, you probably don't belong in grad school.

Thats kinda harsh man, some states just don't have money to afford paying people that go to grad school to live on. I'm a Masters student in my first semister at a state school in Missouri, Missouri's education budget has been slashed to shit, I should have a 4.0 for this semister, but I came in with an undergrad in a completely different field of a 2.77 so I didn't qualify for JACK SHIT. So to say I don't belong in grad school because I'm not getting my school/rent/food paid for kind of bothers me. Espically when its comming from a philosophy student.

Most grad students in the sciences dont' have to get loans to pay for school. The schools will almost always give you a deal. Either you get a fellowship, or you have to become a TA, and in return you get your tuition waived, and a living stipend. Even then, that's usually only for the first year. After that, you are supposed to be living off grant money from your thesis project/ one of your advisors projects.

My apologies -- I wrote that last post of mine too quickly. What I should have said is that in most cases if you can't get the school to give you a stipend, you don't belong in grad school. The exception is if, for whatever reason, your performance as an undergrad doesn't match your native abilities, which it sounds like is probably sngx1275's case.

accepted asaris, I really figured thats what you meant, but man I have to stick up for myself whenever I can. Sorry about that philiospohy comment, but I was a hard sciences undergrad and am now an Engineering Management grad student so the people I've interacted with haven't been of the liberal arts kind.
And I do plan on having school/rent/food paid for this fall, I'm doing summer classes to make up for it and I'm doign quite well so far. I'm planning on getting my 4.0 and then the funding I need to live and go to school for the remaining semisters.