Paying for Grad School

[Anonymous]

I will be starting a graduate program in January. I am taking 2 classes per semester and that comes out to about $4,000 each semester.

I work in marketing and make base+commission. Some weeks are significantly better than others. My original plan was to pay the $4k upfront each semester. I'm worried that limits the cushion I like to have in my account for lean weeks. My thought is that I'll take an unsubsidized loan to cover each semester and pay it back $1000 a month while I'm in school. That way, I still won't have debt when I graduate, but I will have a safety net in case anything unexpected comes up.

I'm planning to take classes in the summer, when I can't take a loan. Should I take $8k this spring and just save $4k for summer? I'm the kind of person that will just tuck it away in savings until I need it, so I'm not worried about blowing it. The other thought I had was to not pay the loan during the spring and just pay the 4k for the summer and then worry about the loan for the Spring.

Thoughts from anyone who's done similar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will be starting a graduate program in January. I am taking 2 classes per semester and that comes out to about $4,000 each semester.

I work in marketing and make base+commission. Some weeks are significantly better than others. My original plan was to pay the $4k upfront each semester. I'm worried that limits the cushion I like to have in my account for lean weeks. My thought is that I'll take an unsubsidized loan to cover each semester and pay it back $1000 a month while I'm in school. That way, I still won't have debt when I graduate, but I will have a safety net in case anything unexpected comes up.

I'm planning to take classes in the summer, when I can't take a loan. Should I take $8k this spring and just save $4k for summer? I'm the kind of person that will just tuck it away in savings until I need it, so I'm not worried about blowing it. The other thought I had was to not pay the loan during the spring and just pay the 4k for the summer and then worry about the loan for the Spring.

Thoughts from anyone who's done similar?

I'm in a similar situation now, and paid for this past summer (almost $5k) out of pocket because I didn't have enough room on federal loans left from the fall/ spring semesters. This year I got a nice scholarship, so I am able to reserve the amount on the federal loans to cover summer 2014, and it's such a blessing, because I can't write that kind of check next year.

I recommend you do what you propose here: take enough out/ leave enough open on the loan to cover summer so you don't have to pay out of pocket- it's covered, and you can pay back on your own schedule (which sounds great, btw. Wish I could do the same).

[Anonymous]

OP here: the loan has a 5.81% interest rate and I can take up to $10,250 each semester.