paying for college courses when you're not a fulltime student?

[MommyDOK]

Is it true that you can't get student loans if you're not a fulltime student? My dh wants to finish his degree, and it will help him get a better job, so I'm all for it. However, he can only handle 1-2 courses at a time. A friend told me that you can't get pell grants/student loans unless you're a fulltime student. Does anyone know if this is true or not?


IF it is true, how did you go about financing college courses?? He'll go to our local state school and each 3 credit class is about $1300-$1500 , but that's still undoable w/out credit cards.

[Leta]

Full time students get priority, so when he fills out his FAFSA, he should *always* mark down that he intends to go full time.

If he gets a full Pell (which is around $2200 per semester) and then he only signs up for a couple classes, they will prorate his Pell grant. That works something like this:

if 12 credits or more is full time (100%), he'll get 100% of his Pell. If he takes 2 classes at 3 credits per class, that's half time (50%), so he should get around $1100 in Pell Grant money.

Loans are much trickier state of affairs, but they, too, are prorated based on enrollment time.

There's also something called an Individual Development Account for someone going back to school. They match you 2 to 1, so if you wait six months you could build up a little nest egg.

[Kristine233]

Here you only need 6 credits to get financial assistance. (loans and grants) Thats only 2 classes. You get loans and grants based on the credits you take.

[PaytonPlace]

I've been in school for the past 18 months and I go part time and have never had any problems getting federal Stafford loans.

I'm not sure about the Pell Grant thing, I've never been able to qualify for one.

[zebra15]

I went part time and recieved full time financial aid. Its all in how you fill out the forms... Have your DH go talk to the financial aid department at school. There are also grants and scholarships available (aka FREE MONEY)