I know a girl who is wrapping up her education certificate working with a local highschool and a couple faculty members, in her words, "quarter-jokingly" told her to escape while she still can.

I tell ya, it's true. With these budget cuts now's not a good time to be a teacher. Our district is supposed to cut 300 next year. That's bullfuckingshit because some of these teachers are awesome at what they do -- they just don't have tenure. And they're firing some of the tenure teachers, too. In my girlfriend's school they're thinking of letting go the TEACHERS FOR THE DISABLED KIDS. That's messed up. The only places with openings are like in Logan or Compton. Sure, you get a nice loan forgiveness plan. But I don't think I'd want to teach at a place where, I dunno, the kids might try to shoot at me. Hopefully though, the California economy will rebound and we won't have to axe education as we know it.

Anyway, sorry for the misinformation Vincey Poo -- I got 5 grand from FAFSA, not 17. I was counting the additional aid + stafford loans.

Yeah, fuck loans. I did a little research and the general term of the loan is for 10 years, around 150-200 bucks a month. I could send a kid to college myself if I could save that. I think I might do a subsidized Stafford loan for junior + senior year, and maybe get a Perkins loan for grad school. Maybe I might be able to refinance everything into a Perkins loan? I dunno though -- it'll probably exceed the cap they lend at. I'd really like to though, because that way, I can have 70% of it waived when I go off to the Peace Corps for 4 years. In the meantime, I'm thinking community college is best.

Now to convince my friends to stay with me and not get sucked into the ZOMFG 4 YEAR COLLEGES *DROOL* attitude.

I live in Ohio aswell; UT isn't that great of a school, and the city its self isn't that great either, try not to get killed, stay away from bad neighborhoods etc.

lol yeah Toledo looks like a pretty shitty ghetto town from what I've seen of it. Not that big of a difference from Springfield where I live now, anyway.

are you serious?? cuz if they have the means don't put any sort of weird pressure on them dude, that would be a bit off

Most of them are sitting on the fence anyways, thinking about taking loans out. They hardly realize how much money this is. I'll just tell them my horror stories about loan default and maybe they'll come around. If I could convince just a few of them, I might be able to maintain something resembling a 'social life,' and not have to paint faces on volleyballs with my blood if they all left me behind. Nah, I won't keep them from their careers or anything -- I'm not that selfish. But I'm definitely going to tell them the cons of taking this money out now.

What are you talking about? You get a lot more money if you're independent.

That depends on how much he makes. I'm surprised that FAFSA isn't giving him money at 22k though. Draak, go marry someone and have a couple dependents. With that income, you'd surely get financial aid!!!