SealTeamCeltics wrote:
Has anyone encountered the problem of the posted MBA budget being too low? For NYU Stern, the cost of living is stated as $23,534 for room and board, $7,206 for personal expenses, and $936 for local travel (a total of $31,676 for a nine-month academic year, or $3,520 a month; if you spread it across 12 months, it's only $2,640). While you could probably achieve this on a budget (i.e. living like a college student), if I went there I would most likely spend way more than this. My non-retirement savings are quite small and may not cover the excess, especially when you take the summer into account, since you can't simply move out of your apartment if you don't have an internship. Is there any way to borrow over and above this amount, either from the gov't or private lenders?
If you take summer classes, your cost of attendance will be adjusted to reflect a higher living allowance. You would be allowed to borrow up to $42,234 or so for a 12 month year. Otherwise, you can't borrow extra money. You also still get the full living allowance as long as you are enrolled at least half time at the school, generally speaking as far as I know. Don't borrow too much if you don't have to.
I know you can request a budget adjustment, but only for the months you are going to be in class, no exceptions.
You cannot use any type of student loans in order to borrow more money than the cost of attendance, period. And though some of you may disagree with me, I believe that you should only use the Stafford and GradPLUS loans because of the built in federal protections. You don't get that with private lenders.