Financial Aid with very poor credit

Paying for College
1

Hello Everyone,

I’m in need of advice, and this is my situation:

I’m in my late 40’s. I received my bachelor’s degree in early 2000’s and after graduation I worked for my relatives at their business until they retired three years ago. I am not in the best of health, and have not worked since.

It has been two years since I stopped making payments for my credit card, the only card I’ve had. I did not file for bankruptcy, and my credit is therefore very very poor.

I need to go back to university, for a second major, and a Master’s, but I am poor.

My questions are, 1) Will I be eligible for student loans? 2) Will actually declaring bankruptcy help me with getting student loans? 3) Are my chances of receiving help better at private or state universities?

Thank you very much for your help

2

What do you need that degree in? Do you definitely need it at all? Depending on your career goals, you may be able to get the training you need on the cheap at a community college.

Grad students can borrow federal loans to pay for their education. Read up on those loans here: http://www.finaid.org/loans/gradplus.phtml

3

Thank you for your reply HappyMom.

I had graduated with a degree in Humanities. What I like to do now is to get a degree (followed by a Master’s) in Mathematics, in order to teach it. My concern is really my financial situation, whether it has made me ineligible for any financial aid.

For instance, in the link you kindly provided I saw this:

“Eligibility. You can get a PLUS loan even if you have a bad credit score, so long as you don’t have an adverse credit history (i.e., no more than 90 days late on any debt and no defaults, bankruptcies or other adverse action on any Title IV debt).”

Thank you again for your kind reply.

4

First, let’s deal with the debt. You can get on the phone tomorrow with a non-profit consumer debt counseling organization. You can get a referral to one at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) website:

https://www.nfcc.org/

Based on the experiences of friends, GreenPath may be an agency you want to speak with (they are an NFCC member.) There are others out there - just make sure they are members of the NFCC. This can help you get your financial record back on track.

Second, about your plan to pursue more education:

I don’t know what you plan to study for this second degree, and then Master’s, but I think you ought to consider that more college education may not be the answer for you. A college degree does not guarantee a career. You are not old by any means, but you are only about 20 years away from retirement, and you cannot afford to take on the kind of debt that you would likely face going back to college at this time. A second bachelors, plus a Masters - that’s at least 4-6 years back in school, still out of the workforce. If you started this fall, and stayed on track (with no interruptions due to health and/or finances), you would not be done with your second bachelor’s until 2019, and your Masters in 2020 or 2021. You have been out of the workforce for three years already, and by the time you would graduate with that Masters, you would be out of the workforce for another 4-6 years - that’s 7-9 years out of the workforce, you will be in your late 50s, and the sad reality is that a lot of employers are going to hesitate to hire you under those circumstances. Plus you describe your health as poor, as well as the state of your finances. Going back to college for that much education is not going to solve your problems, in my opinion.

I know that all sounds very negative and discouraging, and I am sorry about that. I have known a lot of adults who went back to school as non-traditional students, and some chose to take out more loans and some may have received grant aid, while others benefitted from employer programs that reimbursed them for their college classes. Most of those I knew were already working full-time, and went to college classes in the evenings - they were full-time employees and full-time students at the same time - very challenging for people in good health and with sufficient financial resources. So, yes, returning to college can be done, but is that really your best option at this moment?

I think finding a job should be your first priority. Most states offer job search assistance these days, and perhaps due to your financial situation, you would qualify for those career services. You need to get back into the workforce as much as your health allows, and you might even consider volunteering somewhere (like Goodwill) just to get back into the world. Goodwill, by the way, does help with job training. I know you have your college degree, and you may see that as taking a step backward, but, from your post, it does not sound like you had many years to really use your current college degree. Besides, any steps you take to move yourself from your current situation to a new situation are steps in the right direction, not backwards in any way.

If you still want to pursue more education, consider attending a local community college first, just taking some classe that would help get you back on the road to employment. At that community college, I would recommend that you go talk with their guidance department. You might even be able to qualify for some financial aid that would allow you to sign up for a class or two there, since you have been out of college for many years, and also not working for many years. You might just need the mental boost from taking a class, and getting back into the world. When I worked at a community college, we had many non-traditional students and we offered many resources to help them discover their talents, and pursue their plans, all within a very supportive and understanding environment. After speaking with a guidance counselor, you might learn that there are special grant programs that could help you. You might discover that you can build on the degree you already have, rather than getting another BA and/or graduate degree.

From my perspective, if I were in your shoes, I would focus on getting on the path to a job, and, ideally, with an employer who offers tuition reimbursement. Build on your current degree and your work experience. Maybe someday getting a second bachelor’s or a graduate degree would make sense, but let your future employer pay for that.

I would just encourage you to focus on getting a job first - any job, paid or volunteer or both - and get back into the world as best you can given your health. More college is never a guarantee of a career, especially if you have not been working for a while. And the associated expenses seem to me to be very risky for someone like yourself to take on at this time.

  1. Work with a non-profit debt counselor to help you get a handle on your finances and your debt, to help ease your mind and repair your financial history.

  2. Then work with a local social services agency to help you pursue jobs and/or workforce retraining options, or even volunteer options with agencies like Goodwill, which can also help put you on a path to a job.

  3. After that, then head to your local community college and get back into school, one or two classes at a time, and work with the counselors available there. At least take the time to talk with them about your plans to get more college education at this point in your life. Get their objective opinions, and their advice.

Best of luck to you.

5

You won’t be able to use the PLUS loan for your second undergraduate degree in mathematics (you will be able to use it for your graduate/Master’s degree though).

As an independent student, your eligibility for Stafford direct loans is higher than for dependent students but you might have already used some of that already.

6

Teach where? Public school secondary ed, or community college?

For secondary education, if you have a fairly strong math background now, you may not need to complete another bachelor’s degree, but rather just need to collect a certain number of courses. The education coursework could be either undergrad, or a one-year MAT program.

But please don’t set off down the K-12 teaching route without first spending a lot of time in classrooms. You need to know that you can handle working with the kids. Look for a paraprofessional job in your local school district. Often school districts will help paras pay to become certified teachers.

If you know you like teaching, and you are aiming at math because of the demand for math teachers, you might also consider certification in special education and/or in ESOL. Those are high demand fields as well and may require less retro-fitting than you’d need for math.

7

Chesterton, thank you so much for your kindness and reply. The degree I’d like to study for is Mathematics. The degree I hold is in another branch of the Humanities.

I was under the impression that since I already have a bachelor’s degree, a second bachelor’s would require less time to complete, since I’ve completed the electives. I had in mind two years for the second degree. Am I mistaken?

Yes I could go back to work, but it will take me at least two years to pay the credit card, but I cannot help thinking that I could be spending that time in university. I will most certainly consider your advice. Perhaps if I somehow manage to get a degree in Math I could start working then, and study for a Master’s as I work? Does this scenario seem too far fetched? This way I could both work doing something that interests me and study.

Would calling the university I graduated from and speaking with their financial counselors help?

I’ve bookmarked the NFCC website, and will contact them to see what they will say regarding my situation. Thank you so much for including it.

Dmitri, thank you for your reply. Sadly, I think what I quoted before, in my previous reply, would suggest the ineligibility of someone in my situation, even for graduate/Master’s degree. And yes, I did receive grants and loans when in university, and I was able to pay back all the loans.

8

Happymom, thank you so much for the information. To answer your question, I would much prefer to teach at a high school or community college level, although for the latter I know I’d certainly need at least a Master’s. I do have strong math skills, developed through self-teaching for the past several years, but no further than university-level Geometry and Calculus.

Regarding your first suggestion, indeed it would be wonderful if I don’t have to complete another bachelor’s degree. In order to find out, do I contact the university I have in mind (my old Uni) or my state’s department of education?

I will most certainly look into certification in special education and ESOL as well.

I’m most grateful for your help.

9

@sami69, have you thought of asking at Teach for America? I know they take recent college grads but, you may was to ask.

10

Sir, I admire your effort to go back to school and I hope you succeed.

11

I don’t see how this person will be able to support himself and pay school costs and living expenses just on student loans.

It appears that the goal is to go back to school and live on loans, but that’s not possible unless there is a crazy cheap univ with very low room and board costs. Then again, I doubt this person will be living in a dorm.

What do you think your annual costs will be? And how will those be covered??

12

I know you like math, but could you work as a tutor maybe and get training in something more practical that wouldn’t cost so much to achieve? For example I am also in my forties and thought about getting some pharmacy technician training, our local college also offers a physical therapy assistant program that takes 2 years, or maybe you could take a tax preparer course? Something that could get you a better job, but wouldn’t require taking out loans.

13

sami69 -

You need to read through the website of your old university to get a sense of which of your previous credits would count toward a possible second major or second degree there. Then get in touch with them about your new goals, and find out what is possible there.

Each state sets its own teacher certification policies, so you need to read through the information published by the certifying agencies in each state that you might work in. Some states (and sometimes for certain fields but not for others) will do a credit count and don’t care where or when the classes were taken. Other states will only certify teachers who have pursued specific teacher training programs, and require that all (or almost all) of the courses be at one college/university and within a certain number of years. And of course there are states that fall between these two extremes.

Since you like math and you think you’d like teaching, you could investigate part-time work in adult ed. It is less stable than teaching in K-12, but is about as stable as teaching as at a community college as an adjunct. Check around your region for places that offer GED prep courses and Adult Basic Education courses.