Can you get full student loans for the last semester of college study?

Query:  Can you get your full student loan money for your last semester of study in college? 

The answer:  No, but you can possibly get some more, depending on the amount of credits you have left.

For example, You can get more money during the last semester, but you can also get less.  It depends on the number of credits being taken.

To find this out, you want to multiply the annual loan amount by the number of credits enrolled and then divide by the number of credits for full-time financial aid status.

For example: let's assume that 12 credits is full-time for financial aid (this can vary by school):

7500*(17/12) = $10,625
7500*(12/12) = $ 7,500
7500*(9/12) = $ 5,625

The school will use a one semester budget, and the total of all aid in the semester cannot exceed this budget, which means that even if the student has more credits and could get more of their awarded loans, the loans would be reduced if the total of all aid were to exceed COA (cost of attendance) for the single term.

Schools are supposed to automatically prorate loans for any student that they can reasonably be expected to know will graduate at the end of the semester.   Financial aid administrators will run reports to identify these students, then prorate their loans. 

So, if you are taking less than the full time credits, you will find that you actually get LESS loan money than you may have expected.

In sum, if you want to get as much as possible, try to save a full time course load for your final semester of study instead of dropping down to part time.