Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

[v-girl]

Long story short - We don't want to take our daughters out of Catholic school. But without me working, we really can't afford it on a resident's salary. But, as you all know (or will soon find out), working full time when you have 3 children (baby included) and a spouse in residency is damn near impossible and makes mommy cry a lot. And I was only working 4 days a week. Yikes.

So, thanks to me deciding to pay a few outstanding medical bills, and our first family vacation in over 5 years, and paying for school and dance tuition, my retirement money is down to 12K. We need 17K to make two more years of Catholic school. And now we're going through a small panic.

We have owned our home for 10 years. We don't have much debt other than the house and my gas guzzling SUV. We still owe 12K on my Expedition. But if we can get a deal, I've offered to go so far as to give up my gas guzzler in exchange for a mmmm (I can't type it). A minivan. There. I typed it. If we can keep our kids in their school then I will give up my tank for a mommy-mobile.

Any ideas?

[v-girl]

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

Thank you! We're going to look into the Upromise loan.

[samssugarmomma]

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

Does your school offer scholarships or reduced tuition for parishioners?

Also - how are you local public schools. Our local public elementary school is in "academic emergency" so we can get a voucher up to 2-3K from the State that will allow us to send DD to any private school. Is that an option?


Good luck. If we loose the ability to get our state voucher I don't know how we will swing private school!

[v-girl]

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

We're already getting parishioner tuition. There's no financial aide that I know of.

And we don't have vouchers, but if we did, we wouldn't qualify -- public school is within view from our front yard and it's a good school. I just hate the TAKS test and I'm concerned on how they would handle my oldest daughter who needs a little help in language arts and math. She did speech therapy there in preschool and we were told that if we enrolled her there they would put her in special ed. That's dumb.

I also have this huge fear of fights and bullies at school. None of those things happen at our school.

[samssugarmomma]

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

Bummer Veronica!

I hate it when you are so close to making ends meet and still can't! That's how we live anyway........

Is there anyway you could work part time and sock the money away in a special "this is for the tuition shortfall" account?

[Flynn]

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

We're already getting parishioner tuition. There's no financial aide that I know of.
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I'd look into this further. A Catholic school with no financial aide? I'd be SHOCKED if this was the case. One of the ideals most Catholic schools preach is scholarship or financial aide packages available to some students -- it's part of "giving back."

Usually you have to ask however, hat in hand, and be totally honest with the "powers that be." If this particular school doesn't have this kind of money laid aside for deserving families, ask what other arrangements you can make. Allow them to come up with a solution because it's there. Private Catholic schools can basically do anything they want. Make them, make you the exception.

[houseelf]

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

If none of the above options above work out, how about sittign down with the head of school and telling him/her your circumstances. They may be able to find you a note that you can payback later. I want to say Sallie Mae has a program for this sort of thing.

Good luck.

Kelly

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

No advice just pulling for you that something comes through.

[v-girl]

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

DH hasn't told his dad what's going on yet. Want to know why? Because FIL would offer to pay for it. Umm...I'd take that loan (as long we he understood that we would pay back in full). He doesn't want to because of MIL. She'd hold it over our heads as proof that we couldn't make it on our own.

Thanks for the suggestions. We're going to look into them today once we've both recovered from the lack of sleep from the bad storms of last night (we're in Allen, north of Dallas and now have the neighbor's fence up against our house).

[MissCrabette]

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

She'd hold it over our heads as proof that we couldn't make it on our own.

I have no advice for you regarding the finance situation. I just wanted to say that, boy, do I understand where you're coming from with regards to your MIL and money. Sorry, that's

[Meenah]

Re: Any ideas for paying for Catholic school during residency?

My first choice would be to talk to the shool. They may very well give you a loan to be paid back after Residency. They may have a Parishoner who works at a plae like Sun TRust. They will know you are a good risk because you will be making a decent salary in the future. AND-----they will want your donations in the future. Like someone else said, they can do whatever they want. Good luck.