transferstudent2

For example, suppose you get accepted to a school that's 50k per year, including room board, and you don't qualify for any need-based aid. Do they send you a bill each semester for 25k and expected it paid immediately?

Do banks usually give out education loans that large?

'rentof2

Many, if not most, colleges will break up payments over time. At my son's school they use a private company to manage this. You "enroll" in the tuition payment program and the private company then bills you the amount owed broken up over 8 to 10 months, according to your preference.

My daughter's college manages this themselves, and they will arrange a payment plan with you if you request it. Same principle, though, that the amount owed is paid incrementally over the course of the term.

Loans... it depends. Most students (and their parents) pay for school with a combination of grants (when possible), loans, and out of current income and savings.

msmayor

My daughter's school is on the quarter-system, so her bill is actually broken up into threes. There is no 'payment plan'...1/3 of housing, a quarter's worth of the meal plan and tuition is all due one month prior to the start of the quarter.

If there is financial aid, then the bursar's office deducts whatever is allocated to that quarter from the balance due. If a Stafford or PLUS Loan disbursement is covering any part of the balance, then a student does NOT need to make that payment in advance. The loan proceeds are not distributed until two weeks after the quarter begins, but as long as you have all the proper paperwork on file for the loan they let the balance due ride until the disbursement, which then clears the account to zero.

thumper1

Our kids' school used one of the tuition payment programs as one form of payment. Families could sign up for payments which began in August for 10, 11 or 12 months...thus spreading the bills over the year.

The option to pay by the term was also available and we did that one term when DS was in undergrad school and also for the two years he was in grad school (bills were VERY low then due to scholarships that were deducted from his amount due before the bills were sent). For our kids, these bills were due prior to the start of the term.

Some schools do the monthly payment plan and others do not.

alamemom

If the school's cost of attendance is $50,000, not all of that will be billed to you by your school. Items such as books, supplies, transportation and some misc. expenses are usually included in the COA (cost of attendance). The school will bill you for tuition, fees, room and board (if you are living on campus and have a meal plan), lab fees and sometimes insurance. 1/2 is due each semester. You can often break it up into monthly payments.

For books, supplies, transportation and the misc. expenses: you would pay those on your own - not to the school. Students who live in non-university housing would pay directly to the landlord of that housing.

sk8rmom

To students? Not unless they have a very strong cosigner. To parents, maybe. I've seen some very large Parent Plus loans approved, but there's not much of a credit check associated with those. Private student loans are more dependent on the credit worthiness of the borrower and/or cosigner.