please help!! so confused about repayment for student loans

i am starting grad school to get an mfa in painting in 3 weeks. to
cover the cost of school i have taken out a stafford loan (managed by
educaid) totaling $18,500, and a private sallie mae signature loan for
$19,000. i already have part of an undergraduate stafford that totals
$11,000, which i am deferring while i'm in grad school.

obviously, i am studying to be a painter and don't plan on making a
ton of money. i worked very hard as a consultant for several years
after college and saved enough money to pay off part of my
undergraduate loans (also a plus loan in my mom's name) and a huge
credit card bill i racked up while i was a student. however, i was
miserable and finally decided that life was too short to just work
endlessly doing something i hated so ... art school here i come.

here's the problem: at first i thought i wouldn't be able to afford
grad school - i have some money saved but definitely not enough to pay
for tuition or support myself for the next two years. however, i
called sallie mae and asked them about the repayment options for both
a stafford and a signature loan (at the time i thought my stafford
would be through sallie mae, but educaid is a subsidiary). i was
assured that i could defer the stafford 3 times for economic hardship.
after that, i could apply for forbearance for the same reason. i
explained to the customer rep that my projected salary for the next
several years would probably be under $12,000. could i keep qualifying
for forbearance if this was the case? she assured me that i could, or
else i could pay a very small amount each month as part of an
income-sensitive repayment program - as little as $50 a month. she
said the same thing for the signature loan - and my promissary note
indeed states that i can repay "$50 a month, or whichever is less on
all my signature student loans". this would mean i would be paying off
my debt forever, but at $50 a month i could probably deal with it.

this made me feel okay about my decision to take on all this debt -
the sliding scale sounded like a reasonable arrangement. however,
after reading through all the posts in this group (which i just
found), i am starting to freak out. i am seeing over and over how
people couldn't meet the minimum monthly payment for their loans and
after trying to negotiate a lower sum with their lender, they were
just sent into default. the sallie mae rep assured me that they would
accept whatever payment i could make - but were they just telling me
that so i would sign up for their pricey loan?

in case sallie mae is misleading me about the "pay whatever you can
afford" bit - if i consolidate all my federal loans into a william d.
ford direct loan after graduating, will i be allowed to pay a small
amount like $50 every month? because there is no way i'll be able to
give up 25% of my monthly income to pay for school debt ... an amount
i didn't hear from the rep but i am reading a lot here.

finally - i have to ask about bankruptcy as a precaution. i
consolidated my undergraduate stafford with sallie mae because i
didn't know about the william d. ford loan then. however, now that
i've consolidated with sallie mae - does that mean that my undergrad
stafford is now a private loan, and could be dismissed if i ever had
to declare bankruptcy? how do i find out?

i appreciate any help i can get ... i need to decide in the next 3
weeks if i can afford to go to this school. i'm getting a sinking
feeling that the answer is no.


thanks - elizabeth