Paying for tuition

[jodi]

Anyone care to weigh in on this? DH is entering his LAST semester of school now - yeah! He currently has $15,145 in student loans at about 4.5% interest (consolidated just before the rates went up in July). This is $6k from undergrad and $9k from his return to school last year.

We just got the tuition bill for this semester - $5800. We can either get another subsidized loan for it, interest free for six months after graduation (so until 6/07), and then it will be at 6 or 7% (anyone know the going rates? I heard they would be substantially higher than in the past).
Or...we are considering getting a 0% interest credit card to put this on. We have the discipline to make the payments every month to keep the 0% rate. We also have enough in the emergency fund to pay it off, if need be, at anytime. The 0% would last until 8/07 or 10/07, depending on which card we apply for. The hope would be to chip away at it for a year and have it gone by then, or at least to pay it off with the EF (worst case scenario) before any interest kicks in.
Of course, the last option would be to pay it out of the emergency fund (my least favorite). We have $8600 in an HSBC account and another $1400 in our checking/savings. I like to keep about $10k (my own arbitrary number for feeling secure). I would be very nervous with only $4k in our savings, as I only work PT and DH will not be able to work until January, when he is done student teaching.

What benefits/drawbacks am I missing? We are personally leaning towards option #2.

[disneysteve]

Well, the credit card route makes more sense because you can get 0% for a longer period and earn reward points or cashback on the transaction. But that depends on you being sure you can repay the debt before the 0% expires.

[sweeps]

My instinct is to take the subsidized student loan. You don't have to make any payments at all until June 07, so you can maximize your interest earned. The only question I have is how much are the origination fees on the student loan? If for example the origination fees will be $500, then perhaps the 0% CC is the way to go.