Students scrambling for loans
August 03, 2008
Marrisa Barros started taking calls from panicking parents Monday. The phone didn’t stop ringing all week.
Barros, the student loan coordinator at Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, is used to the last-minute crunch of families securing loans for the upcoming school year. But this year is painfully different.
The Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority, the most popular source of private loans for MMA students, announced Monday it could not secure funding for the upcoming school year because of the recent upheaval in the capital markets. State officials notified about 40,000 students that MEFA could not offer private loans, leaving students and their families scrambling for other options.
The news has left students across the Cape joining the statewide search for other loans.
At MMA, the fall semester bill of more than $8,000 is due tomorrow. That left families one week to figure out how to pay for school.
With less banks offering federal loans, parents and students considering more risky variable-rate private loans, Barros said. "Their hopes were dashed this week," she said.
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