Current student aid and defaulted private loans

[NJD123]

My other posts have backgroud details if you need them, but here's my question:

 

I should be out of federal defalt next month if not sooner (I recieved notice of being taken off the offset list last month, and the CAs are reporting my federal loans as current) and the goal has always been to take some classes to update my cruddy tech-school computer degree from 7 years ago so I can grab sme better freelance work or even upgrade my regular job.

 

The defaulted PRIVATE loans will put me back into re-payement if I give them 1800$ over the next three months...which there is no way for me to get. So I have 2 questions:

 

1) Will I be eligible for federal aid at community college now that I'm back on track with all the federal stuff? Or will the private loans prevent that?

 

2) If I am eligible for federal aid would I be able to take out a small federal loan and use it to pay the 1800$ to the private loans so I can be back on track with them as well? I'm not sure if that counts as an educational expense. The private loans will put us on a 200-300/month payment plan after that.

 

3) If Sallie Mae's CA is telling me they will put us on a payment plan after making this large lump sum, will they actually do it? We can't afford more loans if we're just gonna get sued anyway.

 

Thanks!