Thanks for the advice. We're doing what we can, however there's no guarantee that our efforts will bring in cash, much less enough to cover the shortfall.

Every loan estimate was not actually an estimate before the government website had the information for the program, which was not until very recently. There was no way to know what the government loan amount would be, except for the maximum for a single person and the maximum for a married person. I had hoped that I would receive the maximum due to the absolute poverty but apparently the government still pretends that applicants have family support and money they don't necessarily have when doing the calculations. I can appeal, but might get even less, it'll depend on the person handling the appeal.

I knew I'd need *something* at the bank, and had one co-signer. Unfortunately, the loans needed are more than that one co-signer will sign up for, and I need 3 co-signers.

The automatic grants will help, but I'll still need a total debt of $25k at the worst, ($10.5k gov, $15k bank,) which will be reduced if we have any income or scholarships.

We're trying to ask for help from his parents. We will still need one more person to help.

I can apply for scholarships until I'm blue in the face however if the money's already gone it's gone. There's no guarantee that I'd get scholarships, campus jobs, off-campus jobs, or that my husband can help out. I'm applying, sure, but I still might get nothing at all for it. I'm also not going to be physically ok to go to school and work at the same time until about December, because it's going to take some time to recover from this summer's lack of food and medication.

My mother hasn't called me back, as far as I know there's no help there anyway as her situation is usually even more precarious than mine.

I'm trying to get the worst case scenario covered so that anything we can do to improve the situation actually does improve it, rather than just making the situation slightly less impossible.