Any medical technical professionals reading and willing to share? My school plans have hit a problem. I’m going to try to think creatively for solutions.
As I mentioned previously, I was planning on going back to school to be a radiologic technologist. I wanted to take out a loan to live off of for several years while I do the associate’s degree. This way I can focus on my studies and pay the loan back with the higher paycheck, and with the loan itself while I’m in classes. I was just told it might not be possible to find the loan that I wanted by a credit union and some banks.
The most I’ve found was a 25k personal loan and I need something like 60 to 80k for 2 to 3 years worth of bills while I take classes. I was told no because they don’t like the fact that I won’t be working, or because I don’t have any assets, or they don’t offer loans for living expenses, or… An excellent credit score doesn’t get you that far I guess. I have to actually own a home for collateral.
I haven’t given up! I’m just rethinking some things. I have the savings to cover tuition (not books and other expenses like clothes). But I figure I’ll need at least 30k a year if I’m living by myself. There’s financial aid but I have to actually be taking classes for that to be a thing. So I actually have to start a process with some money in order to start hunting down grants and loans. If I run out of money that’s bad. I have some savings but only for about a third of a year and who wants to lose emergency money? A conundrum.
I have a relative who has made a very generous offer but I can’t treat that like it’s real until it is real, they just graduated and need to get a job. They have been similarly generous before. Another relative has said they would like to do similar things but that is less certain. I want to act like I have to do this on my own until I know for sure. It’s responsible of me to try to make it work anyhow.
So far the best I can think of is to get the smaller loan, get my foot in the door academically by taking some classes, and applying for a lot of financial aid, as much as I can find. My time will be divided with financial aid hunting but that doesn’t seem so bad. Still, are there other funding sources I’m unaware of? Does anyone know? How did you pay for your school?
There’s an extra annoying part I want to vent about too. I need to take 4 classes just to qualify for the radiology technologist program, and they only take a certain number of people. So that academic foot in the door will not include being registered in that program. I need to find out what I will be registered as during that time because it could affect financial aid. I sure wish this was simpler. At least they accepted a semester of classes I took in the past as transferable credit.
I know a radiologist IRL who is an acquaintance. I asked and she said she was certified in the military and it took about a year. That’s not what you want to hear.
I know you won’t want to hear this either: avoid school loans. I got through school working part-time through high school (more than full-time with several jobs during summers) and full-time through university, and my kids did the same thing.
You’re living with your parents–can you continue living with them while you’re in school? Can you continue to work while going to school?
Thank you for sharing.
I’m only living with my parents while I’m separated from my wife, and that assumes that we’re getting back together which I want to happen. I’d rather keep doing what I’m doing and be with her.
Living with my wife I’d need to work, evenings in order to make the school schedule work. I’m willing but need to find the right job.
I guess if we didn’t stay married I could stay with my parents.
I was hoping for you to have a secure place to live, so that would be one less worry. Is your wife employed? If you reunite with her, would she be willing to carry you during your studies? I believe radiology would be a good field for you to enter, if you can swing it.
This might be completely unhelpful, so apologies in advance…
There was a while I briefly looked into getting a Clinical Laboratory Scientist qualification. I worked alongside a lot of people with that title, and did a lot of the same work, and was often the go-to person for troubleshooting machine/instrument problems/malfunctions, but since I was classified as a lab assistant, I was struggling to survive with an inconsistent work schedule/load, while they had a pretty predictable workload, and a decent salary. Unfortunately, the CLS program itself was like a year (possibly paid, IIRC?), but with a low acceptance rate, and I just didn’t have the right prereqs – I would have needed a year+ of full time courseload to meet the requirements. Also, I heard conflicting data about applicants being required to have “normal color perception”
Just wanted to bring it up, because if you happen to have the right pre-reqs (I can’t remember, but I think I was lacking on stuff like immunology, virology, microbiology, etc), it might be a goal more suited to your situation. I think last time I looked was almost a decade ago, but in the SF Bay Area, I think 100~120K was a pretty common range at the time. Not amazing, but, if you happen to have most of the applicable coursework, not bad for a 4+1(+ish) investment.
Apologies if this is all useless and unwanted.
Things are rough out there, and wishing you the best of luck, while also wishing we as a people can find a less horrible way to conduct existance…
My wife is employed but she would not be willing or able to carry me. I have family willing to loan me the money though. I can’t act like it’s real until it’s real though and until then I’m going to hunt for other funding opportunities and save money while I’m living with my parents. It won’t cover living expenses but it will cover tuition and that’s something at least.
@lochaber
Don’t worry about comments being useless and unwanted.
I don’t know about the laboratory scientist part. I’m going to be pursuing technical work. When I tried to be a research scientist I was good at the technical work. There was something about the rest that I had trouble with so I’m just looking for a job where I can do the same predictable thing at someone else’s instructions.
I appreciate the thought though. Hopefully one of these days I can figure out what went wrong during those times.