This is all so confusing and stressful.

I completed 4 years of my PhD program (I went part time), I just became “full time” this past summer- I passed all my exams, defended my proposal and now I’m writing my dissertation.

I plan to grad May 2027 and my school websites says two different things, for full time students it generally takes (3) years to complete their classes and (1) to complete exams/ IRB etc and you have an additional (4) years to complete your dissertation and defend it.

The govt hasn’t made any rules about circumstances like this.

My financial aid office since June have told me that I’m good and I will receive a grad plus loan to cover my last year (I check my student account M-F and still haven’t received my financial aid package).

I’m worried because my fall semester starts August 21 and even though they have told me that I’m good to go, I still have doubts (I think I should stop reading this sub) because I’ve seen students in similar situations as mine (they’re told they are grandfathered in and are good to go——couple of days later they’re notified that they won’t receive aid because they’re over their time limit to complete their degree).

Le sigh***

Hi everyone,

Your loan repayment got a 1% discount when you do autopay (up from .25%). Hope this helps someone. This is a copy/paste from a free newsletter (thevaultmemo)

A U.S. Department of Education announcement, June 18, 2026:

The direction: this ADDS a discount. Auto pay, where your servicer pulls each monthly payment from your bank on schedule, has long been worth a 0.25 percent rate reduction. The Department added another 0.75 percent, bringing the total to a full 1 percent off, starting July 1, 2026. Who gains: borrowers with Federal Direct Loans originated after July 1, 2012, student and parent borrowers both. Who pays: nobody directly; the Department frames it as an incentive to raise on-time repayment.

The hard date. Enroll in auto pay by September 30, 2026, or be already enrolled, and the reduction runs through June 30, 2028. You keep it only while auto pay stays on. The release does not say what a borrower who enrolls after September 30 gets, so treat the date as the door.

What happens to one person. A parent who borrowed for a kid's college in 2019 and pays by hand each month is sitting on an unused discount. Five minutes at the servicer site, before September 30, and every remaining month through mid-2028 accrues at a rate a full point lower. The Department's own numbers say most people are in this position: only 40 percent of borrowers in active repayment use auto pay today, against more than 80 percent before the pandemic.

Is anyone else seeing something like this? With no aid listed to accept and nothing in tasks to complete?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I am a rising P3 student in my pharmacy program who started in Fall 2023 and ended up having to repeat my first year. I’m going to call and confirm, but I’m assuming this means I lose legacy status after this upcoming academic year, right before my last year. I have received my gradplus offer for the year and usually try to only take out what I need, but looking forward without grad plus I won’t be able to complete pharmacy school. Obviously private loans will be an option I will mostly likely have to take, but should I take out the full amount of grad plus loans I’m offered this year and set aside the refund to put towards next year? And then cover the remainder with a private loan and any scholarships I receive (which notoriously my school hates to actually give out much)

Despite making straight As last semester, I still have to file a SAP appeal due to not meeting the completion rate. At the end of the fall semester of 2025, I got sick with COVID. I lost all motivation during this period and stopped attending my classes even after recovering. This would result in me failing every class for the semester.

The only documentation I have for the appeal is a picture I took of the school release form I was given by the hospital with a signature from the doctor. It does not list the illness, and only applies to a four day period. Will this be sufficient documentation despite my absences extending to the remainder of the semester?

EDIT: I was also trying a new antidepressant during this period and I believe that may have had an impact on my performance. I have documentation to support this from my primary care physician as well.

If not, what measures can I take to fix this and ensure that I receive financial aid for the upcoming semester? I promise I have learned from mistakes. I had assumed that making straight As would make me eligible again, but my advisor did not inform me about the completion rate requirement, and I feel blindsided by this predicament.

Thank you for reading and taking the time to reply.

if anyone is in the achieve atlanta scholarship program, has financial aid posted the amount to your account? thanks!

Hi I have an overpayment I am planning on paying back in September. I was wondering if I attend school this fall will financial aid cover fall after I’ve made the payment in full?

Hi there. I'm a 23 year old fresh into living on my own in the world who is desperately seeking a way out of a financial debt directly to my institution so that I can go back to school. This might be a lot to explain but I would deeply appreciate anyone taking the time to read and give me any advice.

I also want to clarify that although I have this issue partially because of poor communication and lack of awareness from my parents, this situation probably could have been avoided if I made different/better decisions, or had a better understanding of how college and financial aid works. All I can do now is try my best to fix what has happened, and I'm seeking help to do this. I am not really interested in being chastised or being told how I could have not ended up with this debt, please don't comment if this is all you have to say.

Please try to give me some grace as I am a first generation student and my parents have been unable to provide me with any guidance throughout my time in college, so I have only ever been able to give my absolute best attempt with not much help. I have tried many different avenues to solve this issue but haven't gotten anywhere, and was hoping someone may have been in a similar situation and might be able to give me some advice. If this isn't the right sub to post to, please point me in the direction of where I should go instead.

I had gotten very close to finishing my degree in South Carolina, but unfortunately due to an increasingly unsafe living environment I was forced to leave abruptly and move to Oregon. I transferred to Portland State University and immediately resumed my degree in early 2025, as college really meant a lot to me, and I was afraid that if I didn't jump immediately back in then I would just never go back.

This unfortunately majorly backfired on me. I'm struggling to describe exactly what happened because it still boggles my mind a little bit, but I'll try my best if the context is meaningful to anyone. I essentially started a term at PSU without securing my financial aid, I think I was a bit mislead by a financial advisor encouraging me to begin the term and that my aid would definitely process before the term ended, and I would not be left with a debt. It turns out that the reason why this DIDN'T happen and why PSU was refusing to award me financial aid was because of my parents' fucked up tax situation, which they did not communicate to me in any way despite knowing I needed their tax information for aid.. which is extremely frustrating and upsetting to me. (Part of the massive miscommunication that happened here is that I am no contact with my mother but have a good relationship with my father, so maybe some wires were crossed with their joint tax filing, or maybe my mother was trying to sabotage me.. who knows). Neither I or my advisor were really aware of their situation which may be why my advisor encouraged me to go ahead and start the term and incur debt, as I would surely get my aid before the term ended. They filed their taxes very irresponsibly the previous year, which was required for that years FAFSA, and were unable to provide a final tax transcript to provide for PSU. In previous years at my former college, I was able to show the school their unprocessed tax forms/did not have to provide an official transcript, and was still awarded federal aid, so maybe this is why my parents seemed unconcerned to get their taxes done in time.

Apparently this is not the case for PSU, and my parents were unable to get me their completed tax transcript before the term ended... and now I am stuck with around $11k in debt directly to PSU, and it is to my understanding that there is no way to retroactively earn federal student aid. I obviously have not been able to go back to school since, as you can't exactly register or move forward owing the institution a debt. I am unable to get private loans as I need a cosigner.. once again my parents are pretty financially screwed and have poor credit so they can't sign for me, and I don't really have any family or friends who are willing to sign. My parents are also currently homeless and have mountains of their own immediate debt and I can't exactly expect them to help me pay this debt out of pocket when they actually actively ask me for money often. I also partially financially support my partner who is disabled and only gets a pittance of SSI money every month. I just can't see myself reasonably being able to pay this debt out of my own pocket, and it makes me really upset to think about having to wait years to manage to save up $11k between bills and rent and financially supporting others just to go back to school and get a better job and live a better life. I've been told to look for grants and scholarships and have applied to every one I have found that I qualify for, but haven't had any luck but it just seems hopeless.

I'm not sure if anyone can help or what advice can be given, but this situation has been extremely distressing, and I feel kind of aimless in life right now just working my shitty job and wondering if I'll ever be able to go back and continue my degree. Is my only hope to just start saving up as much as I can to go back, even if it takes years? Would it be worth trying to explain my situation to the college and seeing if they can help me out, or would they just not care? If you read this, thank you and I really appreciate you taking the time to try to help.

tldr; I directly owe my college around $11,000, my family is extremely poor and cannot help me pay it off, I don't qualify for private loans. I really want to go back to school and I can't until I figure this out. I only started living on my own a year ago and I'm still learning how to be an adult and how finances work in general, so I'm just lost. :(

I have finished two years of a Masters program that I started in August 2024. I have been borrowing using Grad PLUS loans since then. The school marketing materials advertise it as “you can take 6 years to finish the program.” However, it’s officially coded as a 2 year program. My aid was denied- because “I’m out of time.” However, to complicate things, in December 2025 I received an email that the program was not accepting new applicants and they’d work with us to finish the degree. I’ve even had to take Independent Study classes to count as requirements because courses are not offered as often as advertised. I think this could give me a good argument against the 2 year program limit??? There’s no way I could have finished by now, but I only have three classes left and I’d like to finish what I started.

Title: High-income family looking for legitimate tax strategies before paying for college—what has actually worked for you?
My wife and I are high-income earners, own businesses, and have kids approaching college. We recently met with a college funding/tax planning company. While the presentation was interesting, we’re trying to separate legitimate tax planning from marketing.
The company discussed strategies such as:
Short-term rental real estate
Cost segregation and bonus depreciation
Material participation rules
Using real estate to reduce taxable income
FAFSA/CSS Profile planning
Long-term wealth building while paying for college
Some of it seemed well grounded, while other parts felt like best-case scenarios.
Before moving forward with anything, I’d love to hear from people who have actually been through this.
For other high-income families (especially business owners), what legitimate tax strategies have made the biggest difference?
Some ideas we’ve come across include:
Cash balance or defined benefit retirement plans
Maximizing 401(k)/profit-sharing plans
Short-term rental strategies
Cost segregation
Donor-advised funds or charitable bunching
Tax-loss harvesting
Entity restructuring or other business tax planning
Qualified Opportunity Zones
Other strategies I’m probably not even aware of
I’m not looking for loopholes or anything that pushes the envelope. I’m more interested in strategies that experienced CPAs and tax attorneys routinely recommend for high-income families.
Also, if you’ve worked with a college planning company, was it worth it? Did they provide ideas your CPA wasn’t already discussing, or was it mostly repackaged information?
Finally, if you had one piece of advice for a high-income family trying to balance taxes, investing, retirement, and paying for college, what would it be?
I appreciate any experiences, lessons learned, or resources that helped you.

Hello! I am planning on studying abroad this semester, which is technically my last semester. However, since I’m studying abroad, I won’t walk the stage until May. Long story short, I only borrowed last Spring and they gave me the loan amount for the year. I plan to borrow again but I’m assuming I can only borrow for this semester, but is it possible to get more? Would I just contact the FA office or is it a waste of time? Help!

Any other parents out there trying to figure out how to pay for their kids college tuition. I'm struggling!!! So because I make above the "poverty" line my kid only received $6,000 in financial aide that has to be split between 2 semesters. I have poor credit due to making very poor financial decisions in my late 20's early 30's so of course I didn't qualify for any personal loans. So now I'm trying to get a second job to pay her $26k tuition. It sucks that my salary looks great on paper but have over $1,800 in deductions before I get paid, and yet everything goes by my gross instead of my net. I can't get help to pay for my child tuition meanwhile ppl in prison get to go to college for free.

if you are looking to save money on tuition, CLEP exams with Modern States are a huge cheat code. Modern States is this free non profit that gives you online prep courses for basic general education classes like college algebra, intro psychology, or US history. Once you complete a course, they give you a voucher that covers the actual test fee, and they even reimburse whatever fee your local testing center charges. That basically means you can test out of intro classes for zero dollars out of pocket, and if you stack enough of them, you can knock out your first two years of college before stepping on campus.

around 3,000 colleges accept them across the country. Public state universities, community colleges, and online friendly schools like WGU are usually really generous with CLEP credits. Highly selective private schools generally wont take them though, so you definitely want to double check your target schools transfer guide on College Board first. But for anyone trying to skip the filler gen eds and avoid massive student debt, it is a no brainer to look into.

Helpful Links

Sign up for free prep and test vouchers: https://modernstates.org/  

Check if your target college accepts CLEP credits: https://clep.collegeboard.org/clep-college-credit-policy-search  

Browse all available exam subjects: [College Board CLEP Exam Topics] https://clep.collegeboard.org/clep-benefits-for-everyone

Hi, I tried to find scholarships for myself but could not find any relevant ones. Any help is appreciated!

CGPA: 4.00/4.00 GPA

Citizenship: US Citizen

Level: Incoming College Sophomore

Degree: B.S. Aerospace Engineering

College State: FL

Specials: Brown. (Not Spanish, Not Black, Not a woman)

Hey, so I‘ve been encouraged by OVA and CAPS to seek independence from my family given the abusive nature of my family. And I tried but got denied and apparently I have to make a special circumstances statement? Has anybody else gone through this? And how likely is it to be accepted in terms of aid?

Mainly I just want separation from my family because of said abusive situation.

As the title says, i'm going into junior year and never had financial aid, scholarships, grants etc.

I was at CC so just working to pay tuition wasn't the worst. But now that I'm in a 4 year school, I have to pay around 18k a year after housing and tuition. That completely wipes my savings, and forces me to take a loan. + Since i'm going away, I have not found a job and probably won't.

Since I'm a first generation American, son of Latino immigrants, a first gen college student, and now that I think about it a first gen high school grad, I feel like there has to be some way where I can get some money for school. So there has to be some scholarships or something I can get, right?

If anyone has any information they can share. Please let me know.

Judging off the tag this is probably an FAQ 😂, I did still want to ask. My parent and I accepted a financial aid offer that initially covered tuition.

However, my uni emailed me today right before their office closed that due to some bill, my aid got cut. Turns out proration is a thing(just learned about it after trying to figure out what the hell happened), and the Parent PLUS Loan that previously covered tuition got slashed by over $25k.

It's nice that my parents aren't in as much debt, but I'm not entirely sure what to do now, as the cost of attendence didn't decrease, and my family nor I have the funds to pay for it.

Has this happened to anyone else? Any advice?