The voice of De Anza since 1967.

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The voice of De Anza since 1967.

La Voz News

The voice of De Anza since 1967.

La Voz News

    Student Barrowers told not Enough Money

    John Capuchino

    Student Barrowers told not Enough Money De Anza Perkins Loan barrowers have been notified that the winter and spring quarters of 2008 disbursements has been canceled. There is no disbursement for the summer quarter. Students will not receive money from the Perkins Loan Program until next fall. Cindy Castillo, the Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships at De Anza College, explained how Perkins Loans are distributed. She said, “The Perkins Loan is a sort of revolving account. The government does not give us any money for the Perkins Program. The money that is being repaid from former borrowers revolves back to the new barrowers. I’ve been here thirty years and what we do is look at the collections from last year, take a conservative estimate of the total repayment for this year, and then project how much we’ll have. Then we award based on that projection.” According to the letter sent out to Perkins Loan barrowers, since July 07, repayments are down 43%. Castillo said that previous barrowers were attempting to pay. She said that many checks received bounced, because the account holder simply did not have the money in their checking accounts. Nicholas Huynh, the official who is in charge of Perkins Loans and Pell Grants, said that students had contacted the Financial Aid Department worried that they were not on the wait list for disbursements and seeking further explanation of the circumstances. Huynh said, “I don’t know what happened this year but it’s really bad. This is the second time in my nineteen years at De Anza that this has happened. The first time, ten years ago, we only had to cut the spring disbursement. This year we have to cut the winter and the spring.” Castillo said that there is no way to know why a group of borrowers are acting a certain way at a particular time. She said that she could only speculate why barrowers were not repaying. “People go into repayment at different times,” said Castillo. Perkins Loans do not accrue interest until after the student exits college six months. Castillo said,” Students could go into repayment years from now if they stay in school, get their Masters, and get their PhD. We could not see a repayment for up to ten years.” She said that because barrowers went into repayment at different times, it was impossible to know for sure whether the recent housing bust was the reason borrowers weren’t repaying. Students relying on Perkins money are being recommended to pull Stafford loans, or if they already have Stafford Loans, to increase the amount they are barrowing. Huynh said, concerning a student facing financial hardship, “I replied to her and urged her that if it’s not enough for her, to keep her in school, that she must go ahead a see Joe Ngo, for a Stafford Loan. If she already applied for a Stafford then she should consider an alternative loan.”

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