Thanks a lot! I'm not sure how I missed this one. It does not require the school to certify the amount -- which is exactly what we need. Great find.

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The loans I mentioned are private loans. All the school has to do is send in an enrollment letter. They do not certify the loan, the check comes directly to you for $30K (or whatever you request).

See, this is what this forum is supposed to be about--helping people and providing useful information.

This is all great info and thanks to everyone for taking time to post it.

I'm going to make this thread sticky until everything gets resolved.

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can you actually do this, because a couple of months ago I thought that I could do the same thing. I got approved by Wachovia for a private educational loan, but when they sent an "enrollment verification" form to Davenport, Davenport only authorized $800 of it, which was the max COA

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I have personally done this with the private loans.

The difference is a loan that has to be school certified vs direct to student. School certified means that the school needs to approve the amount sent to you - which usually is hardly anything, if anything at all.

A direct to student only needs school enrollment verification. This means you apply for the loan, get pre approved, and then have to submit all your paperwork - promissory note, identification (driver's license), etc. Some private loans will accept a transcript from recent that shows you have taken courses and have courses listed as "in progress". If a loan does this, then the school doesn't even know you applied for the loan at all. However, the majority of direct to student loans I have received needed an "enrollment letter". This is a letter that is sent to loan companies even for things like deferment of loans. On this letter is: the school letterhead, date, student name, student social security number, dates of current enrollment, whether that is half time or full time, expected date of graduation, and signed by a school official. I believe usually you call the registrar for this, not financial aid. When you talk you talk to someone, you can just tell them you need an enrollment letter for your loans and have them fax one in. This way you are not saying whether the letter is for deferment or for a new loan.

There are in's and out's to all these loans. But the main thing is that it is a direct to student private loan. You receive the check. The only 'limit' imposed on these loans is either: the amount you are eligible for because of your past credit history/report, and the amount that the loan has on file for that school (meaning some schools, they allow $40K, some they only allow $30K, the Chase iStudent allows $15,400 for a half time student, etc).

I also know friends of mine that I have told about these loans when they were struggling with money and they were able to receive funds through these types of private loans.

To put into some perspective as far as how much you could get....let me say that after this July 1st (if TERI is still guaranteeing loans, and nothing else changes the way things have), I would be eligible for: $30K from one of the TERI loans (I have previously had Astrive and Education Maximizer), $32K from Sallie Mae, $10K from College Loan Corporation (the only one I had to have a cosigner on. their maximum is $40K, but I was only approved for $10K in the past), and $15,400 from Chase. This means that I could take out over $85K in private loans as of July 1st.

I personally have taken out each of the loans that I have discussed in the paragraph above. Not all at once of course, but over my years with SMU, yes. With the way things are going, I am not sure what I will do this summer. If SMU doesn't have a loan program, and TERI doesn't fund any more, then I may take out the Sallie Mae, CLC, and Chase, just to make sure I have money to finish my education.

Anyone that has any questions can feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

medjen-

greatly post. this information is all a student needs to know. I was also approved by maximizer and wells fargo a while back, through st. joes, but decided not. these two loans did not required school certification and all i did was print out my smuonline transcript and fax it to them-after being approved.

once again, great informative post.

Hi,

I don't usually post, but wanted to clarify about private loans. You can get these loans, I believe only if you go through Davenport or a US school taking halftime graduate school credits. Remember too that Teri is the guaranteer of the loans, so if you apply for two loans and Teri, it's the guaranteer for both of them, they might limit the amounts you receive.

Everything is crazy with Teri right now. However typically the way a loan works through them is as follows. They look at the relative "risk" of the loan. Now even though you might not qualify with a Teri loan through SMU, you might very well get a Teri loan through Davenport. Why is that? Caribbean schools are a risk for a bank. US schools are usually not. So a Teri loan even with a good co-signer might get rejected through SMU, but will still slip through if applied at Davenport or another US school.

What if you're a married student? How can you use the system to your advantage? If your spouse also applies for loans through a US school, you can greatly leverage your loan power. Someday there will be a reckoning, but for right now, it will allow you enough to get through medical school.

Some final notes. Remember there are maximums on Staffords. Remember as long as you stay half time in grad school, you can defer your loans. The Education Maximizer through Bank of America is up to 40K, but I doubt anyone has been able to max this out.

I have my loans through St. Joseph's College as well.

As far as loans being guarantted through TERI - if one takes out the maximum through SMU, it does not affect private loans you can take out through the Master's programs. I believe SMU allows $65K maximum through TERI, then you could also get $30-40K through a private loan from TERI (which are listed under a bunch of names - basically you cannot get $30K through Astrive, then $30K through Education Maximizer, then $30K through Think, etc. However, you could do $10K from Astrive, $10K from Education Maximizer, etc).

For these private loans one does have to be enrolled in a program that is listed by that loan company - SJC, Davenport, etc. One cannot use SMU enrollment to get the loan. In addition, any eligible online program can be used as well, not just the places that SMU has 'worked' with in the past. There are other online programs out there that offer Federal Aid, and therefore, some of these private loans could be received through those ohter online programs as well.

The Education Maximizer is up to 40K per year. So if you use that one, you have to time it, or else use a different program. The big benefit to this loan was getting your money prior to classes starting versus the inevitable issues with waiting up to three weeks for financial aid to arrive (in the case of insuring that you are indeed attending classes).

Wow! Thank you so so so much for taking the time to type out all this info. It'll be good to just save any extra money for a rainy day/ semester. In this caribbean situation you have to save for the future unknown semesters too, I'm finding.