Financial Aide question?

[Ellis]

my school is listing Salliemae or pilotfinance.com for financial aide. Can anybody give me any insight into which one is better for flight school? if there is any?

[aviatr]

I don't have much experience with Pilot Finance. I know they are targeting students who fly part-time - 1 to 5 lessons per week.

 

I am much more familiar with Sallie Mae. This loan program will enable you to borrow the full cost of your flight training and pay it back over 15 years. Payments can be deferred up to 2 years, which can be really helpful. It is difficult to get a loan with Sallie Mae though unless you have excellent credit and they will most likely require co-borrowers to sign for you. Even then, chances are you still won't get the full loan amount to cover all your costs. Their application form has a lot of financial jargon, so I would have recommend having someone at the flight school go over the options with you carefully before you submit the application.

 

They are both reputable financial institutions as far as I know. I would check out interest rates on both of them.

[fry]

my school is listing Salliemae or pilotfinance.com for financial aide. Can anybody give me any insight into which one is better for flight school? if there is any?

 

Here's some reading with links to additional reading:

 

http://bankruptcypower.blogspot.com/search?q=

 

http://www.finaid.org/loans/privateloan.phtml

 

And for cripes sakes don't just have someone at the flight school go over your options with you. They don't know jack about loans and they are trying to sell you something.

[NorCalHeliKid]

I'd just like to add that this issue has been heavily discussed since the demise of SSH. If you do a search on this forum and JH you will find a wealth of information. With the stumbling economy and uncertain financial future of many institutions it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain a loan in the full amount for career training. There are alternative means of getting loans from your local banks, as well as small training loans from AOPA. Explore many alternatives and be prepared to have a co-signer who has good credit and assets to back the funding.