Hello,
I am a father of 2 kids (one more on the way) and I am currently back in college at my local community college. I have reached a stopping place in my general education and am going to continue on to a specialized degree and going full time as a student. Engineering is what I want to pursue. However the financial burden of this is becoming a big huge roadblock for me. I am currently the sole provider in my home, and that's something that is not going to be able to change anytime soon. In order to become a full time student, it will require me to only be able to work part time. Fortunately I have a job possibility that will pay 100% of my tuition costs. The only issue is since I will only bring home around $700 a month as a part time employee, I will be about $2300 short of what I need to pay my monthly bills. I have looked into student loan options, unfortunately even though I am approved for above and beyond what I would need to live off of while in school, based on what the school deems as the appropriate cost of living, they will only approve $27,000 annually for student loans, and their tuition cost is included in that. So once tuition is paid (approx $13,000/yr), I will only have $14,000 of student loans available to me to pay bills and things. That puts me a whopping $13,000+ short of what I will need.
I have read about uncertified student loans that don't go through the financial institute to determine what I amount I can take a loan out for, and that would be a perfect option, but after searching high a low I can't find any banks that still offer that type of loan.
Does anyone have any advice on what I can do to continue my education? I already know working full time and being a full time student is out of the question, because only taking 2 classes online right now is maxing out the amount of time I have to dedicate for class. And the program I am going to be going into requires students to be enrolled full time.
Any help or advice you can give me would be very much appreciated!
