Thank you, Mr. Stafford.

Thanks to your undying generosity, I will be able once again to afford to attend Iowa State next year.

If you can’t tell, I just got my financial aid award letter last week, and I was pleasantly surprised. At campuses (or campusi, as I like to say,) all over the country, students are getting the letters that will determine how much they (or their parents) are going to have to shell out next year.

For those privileged few of you out there who have never had the opportunity to apply for financial aid, let me fill you in a little on how it’s done.

In January, students get to fill out a small book filled with questions about everything from your college choice to whether your mom was in the military and gets child support. You also have to fill in some numbers from your family’s tax forms and bank accounts, and plug those numbers into enough formulas to fill a Math 150 textbook.

Several months later, you will get a nice letter from the university, telling you that either: A. You’re parents are richer than you thought; or B. you’re broke, so the government is paying your way.

Last year, Iowa State distributed nearly $76.5 million to needy students, and that doesn’t count scholarships. While that might seem like a huge sum, consider that the Financial Aid Office estimated the total yearly cost of attending ISU to be $11,220 (this includes tuition, room and board, books, and transportation). Take that number times the number of students enrolled here, and all of a sudden that $76 million isn’t quite so huge.

Many students are awarded more money than they actually will need. A lucky few, myself included, get WAY more than they would need for the next few years. Therefore, we are faced with a dilemma: Do we accept all of the money, knowing that we don’t have to pay back the loans until six months after we graduate (and for some of us, that might be a while), or do we just take the minimum that we’ll need to get by, knowing that we DO eventually have to repay it, with interest.

I’m finding myself at that crossroads now. I have several ideas about what I could do with the extra money. My roommates have been telling me to invest it, either in stocks or a CD, and I have been having visions of a car dancing through my head.

Both options have fairly strong arguments behind them. The investing option could very easily leave me with more money than I started (of course, it could also cause me to lose it all, but let’s not think about that).

I am, however, more tempted by plan B, otherwise known as “Operation Kiss-Cy-Ride-Goodbye-And-No-Longer-Bum-Rides-Off-Unsuspecting-Friends.” I figure that I’d have to get a loan anyway if I wanted a car, and so why not use the one that I don’t have to repay right away?

A number of students have done things like this in the past. They have used their aid money to fund something other than their educations. We all know that we have to pay it back, but “six months after you cease to be a full-time student” seems so far away. Why not enjoy the benefits now, while we can? After all, we’ll land a megabucks job right after we graduate, so why worry?

Well, maybe we should worry. Even though the Financial Aid Office calls it an “award,” the fact remains that the money is being LOANED to us. That means that it has to be repaid. The trouble is that most of us can’t see beyond that fact that some fool actually thinks we’re so broke that he gives us enough money to get the United States out of debt each year. We get greedy and don’t think of the consequences.

Don’t forget, there’s also that money from the past few years adding up, and we’ll be needing more before we graduate. While I’m not saying that you shouldn’t help yourself to a little windfall, just remember, it could come back to haunt you.

They might even repossess your car.

Holly Benton is a sophomore in animal science from Early.