Student Loans

When I headed off to University, all I could think about was all that money sitting in my bank account that had never existed before. I was really lucky because I got almost $7000 in scholarships and bursaries as well as the maximum possible loan. All I could think about was money. I was rich.

Not so fast, though, kid.

The way the loans were handled at my school was that we paid a certain percentage of the school fees in September and the rest in January. So I figured that if I budgeted really well, I’d have tons of money to play with. What I didn’t realize was that no matter how well you think you’ve budgeted your money, you get screwed over in the end.

You see, I didn’t realize that I should be checking my loan account every month or so to make sure they hadn’t changed anything. Because they do. When I returned home in December I was ecstatic to find a letter telling me they had reassessed my mother’s financial situation and that they were giving me $1983 in January. What I took from that letter was that I was getting an extra whooping two grand to spend.

But sadly, no. What they had done was fiddle with some numbers and decided that I didn’t need the $4000 dollars that they said I would get in January. Apparently, I only needed half that. The $1983 was instead of the $4000, not in addition to it. So when I got back to school and dropped a grand to hold my apartment for the summer, I knew nothing of the $1500 that I still owed the school after the remaining loan was handed over to them.

Thank god for VISA. And for Mum.