I am also an international student that got accepted to podiatry school. I was accepted to my top choice, but I have no way of paying for it on my own. I received a scholarship for about $7500, but that's about it. I have someone willing to cosign a loan for me to pay all 4 years. I understand that private loans are basically a last option that should be considered, but it seems like it's my only source of funding. What do you guys think I should do?
International student wanting to go to POD school..need advice about private fundi
- Thread starter Mally1995
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Talk to the financial aid department at your program.
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You will need to take a private loan out then if you aren't approved for a federal loan. Unless you have the money then there is no other way. Also you may be ineligible to do a residency at a VA if you graduate.
When you're looking at private funding be very careful when reading the fine print on the loans. There are some loans specifically for medical school that have generous grace periods before repayment is required (since you obviously can't start repaying them immediately after they're issued) and do not hit you with a million different types of fee's, but there are many more that will cost a small fortune on top of the higher interest rates you'll already be paying.
I'm not sure what country you're from, but you may also try to see if you could negotiate some type of funding through your native country's government or their affiliated health services in return for work following graduation (something similar to our Indian Health Services or similar programs). That likely sounds like a wild idea, but when you're talking about 200k+ worth of debt I would try knocking on every door that may be a potential source of money even if there isn't a formal program already setup. Podiatry is a pretty easy sell to most countries with a high rate of diabetes.
I'm not sure what country you're from, but you may also try to see if you could negotiate some type of funding through your native country's government or their affiliated health services in return for work following graduation (something similar to our Indian Health Services or similar programs). That likely sounds like a wild idea, but when you're talking about 200k+ worth of debt I would try knocking on every door that may be a potential source of money even if there isn't a formal program already setup. Podiatry is a pretty easy sell to most countries with a high rate of diabetes.
I will be looking into that actually! I'm from the Bahamas and we have podiatry here and I high rate of obesity and diabetes. What do you think about sallie mae if you've ever heard it?
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Your plan for practicing does include a residency, yes?
yes i am!
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Sallie mae is the same as all the other private lenders you will find. You're going to find some extraordinary interests rates for your student loans - in the 8-9% range. Unfortunately you're going to have to take loans out though. There are no scholarships that will give you anything less than exiting without 200k of debt at the end.
I don't know what the income potential in the bahamas is like. The scope is not bad, you are allowed to do bone/soft tissue up to the level of the ankle. Licensing looks cheap too. I'm assuming due to the low population you won't be doing any sort of trauma or ankle cases though due to orthopedics, and will most likely doing wound care/diabetes/maybe forefoot stuff.
