My wife came to the United States on a H4 visa. She applied for higher studies at a top university (ranked within the top 25) after coming here and joined school in Fall 2012. She applied for COS to F1 and was approved in Nov 2012. She has been doing part time job on-campus after she got her F1 status. For the COS, we had stated the sponsor as my father-in-law. My father-in-law had sufficient funds with which we applied for COS. We thought about the option to get a student loan through a family fried who is permanent resident because the interest rates are lower. Also, we thought that we can use the money on hand for some investment in India and we did invest in buying a house after we got the loan approved here.
The tuition fees has been paid through the bank loan. This loan has been linked to her SSN now. We did mention her SSN when filling out the DS-160. I have been repaying the student loan on time every month though the repayment starts only after my wife graduates.
She has completed 3 semesters so far and has an outstanding GPA and she also got scholarship worth 15k from the school. She also got a internship in her summer semester and currently working on CPT for that company. She is expected to graduate in May 2014. We are planning to go to India in September 2013 and she needs to get her visa stamped.
If the visa officer asks who is sponsoring your education, what should we answer?
The I-20 states "Family funds" and as I had mentioned things changed after a few months of applying COS. In the i-539 application, I did mention about myself and my income although I mentioned my father-in-law as the primary sponsor. I am on H1B and haven't applied for green card yet.
Any help on how to answer this question will be really appreciated. Thanks much!