Student Loans

Did you know that student loans are intended to not only cover tuition, but also books, supplies and living expenses?  I realized that this week when I received notification that I'm getting a check in the next few days.

My first thought: I'll just send the money back to the lender - that's less to pay later on.

My second thought: The interest on my credit card is WAY higher than the interest on the student loan. The money should go there.

My third thought was a rapid-fire slide show of all the electronic things, all the sparkly things, and all the needed things (oh man, you should see the worn-out pants I'm wearing right now!!) that I could buy with the money.

So...I'm leaning towards option #2.  Can anyone tell me why that's not the best choice?

School Update:
I got an 80% on my first Psychology quiz, and I'm fairly annoyed about that because it was open book/open note.  The questions I got wrong were mostly questions where the correct answer wasn't something from the lesson (but the other 3 answers were from the lesson and were wrong, so I guess my powers of deduction suck).  I saw today that the average grade on the first quiz is a 75%, so I feel a little better about that.  I'm also about 1/4 of the way through the reading for the first two weeks, so I'm right on track there.

I got a 100% on my first LER quiz. This one had questions that might as well have been "This class is offered in Mandarin. True/False." It was literally a 10-question review of the syllabus.  I've been participating in the discussion forum, and have completed all of my reading and assignments (including an essay...can't wait to see how badly I did on THAT!) due between now and Sunday.

Oh, and Monday is a holiday, so I get a bonus study day this weekend.  Yay, me!