Saturday, March 31, 2012

Ok really how am I going to pay off these damn loans?

1. Scholarships? Few and far between. I have a scholarship for 10K/year at my school now but it just skims the surface of my $40K/year tuition. But I'm not complaining.

Board of Education of NYC provides one year of tuition in exchange for 24 months of services. If you get 2 years covered, that's 48 months. You provide services in a high-needs area of NYC. Not a bad deal if money is a real issue. Here is the application.

I'm going to try this one. Small but everything counts in small amounts! Hazing Awareness Scholarships.

APTA provides some scholarships. If one of their visions is to promote cultural diversity in the profession, they need to think about more minority scholarships (brilliant idea from one of my classmates)!

Other scholarship opportunities.

2. Pray that the loan forgiveness program comes to fruition.

3. Minimize debt. Do what you can without impacting your studies - part-time job, graduate assistant job, bring your own lunches/coffee/tea to school, consider doing research to earn scholarships, bike/walk to school.

4. Prepare. Know what you are getting yourself into. Here's a loan calculator. Be realistic about how much you will make when you are done and how long it will take to pay off your loans. This might help with planning your time in DPT school.

Picture from Forgivemystudentloans.com

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