I have the opportunity to graduate debt free if I take up a fullride at an university I am seriously considering: Richmond. However, I also received offers from Williams, Bowdoin, and Carleton. For me, I will not be paying full price. Rather, I will be paying around $17,000 yearly (everything included) at these three schools. My parents and grandparents can pay all of this, but I’m thinking of taking 20k in loans so they only pay for the first three year costs (50k), so it’s not too overbearing.
That being said, I am in a position where a full ride would not save considerable amount of money in the long run: only around 70k. For reference, my family earns 70k per year and has 100k in savings. While 70k in savings if I were to attend the fullride is not a small amount, I wonder if the unchallenged perception of taking fullride over paying still applies considering I have great financial aid offers.
So, my question becomes … is it worth it to graduate with 20k debt from William’s, Bowdoin, Carleton or take the other offer?
Yes the aid offers are nice, but please do your family a favor. Accept the full ride. Graduate debt free, and take the financial strain off of them.
70k saved IS a significant amount of money. That is what your family earns each year, and is more than half of what they have in savings. Not spending that money now to help pay for your education could mean that their savings can grow a bit. And perhaps when you do get to med school they will be able to chip in a bit for some of those costs.
In what world is 70K not a “considerable” amount of money?
100% of your family income makes $70K a very considerable amount of money. To save $100k on an income of $70k means some serious, long-term saving. Think about all the things that your family has done without to be able to save that much.
You have stars in your eyes: the “prestige” of the colleges that have offered you genuinely excellent financial aid is hard to walk away from.
Technically, the question is 'is a degree from W/B/C worth ~$70K more than UofR?". But yes, is the sweatshirt worth $20K of (unnecessary) debt heading into med school?
Because between your other threads and this one, the only thing you have mentioned that you like better about these schools is their perceived prestige. You said that you liked UoR & could see yourself going there. I get the bragging rights- those are some impressive names, and you obviously worked hard to get those admissions. But hand on heart: getting to boast to your pals is a really short term thing- by graduation, it will be an afterthought.
Richmond is a great school. I don’t think taking on the kind of debt you have on the table is a good idea given that your family is not going to be able to easily pay off that kind of money. Nor will you, as the interest accrues on the borrowed amount. Especially since you are aiming for Medical school which likely means more loans and more interest accumulating on borrowed amounts. It’s not “just” $70K, by the time all is said and done. Med school is expensive and many doctors have huge loans that are quite the burden to repay.
Don’t borrow if you don’t need to borrow. If you have a really good option that works for you & doesn’t involve debt, take it. Believe me, the interest that will accumulate on your undergrad loans before you are finally able to pay them off will make them become far more than $20k in the end.
But really, with med school, #3 wouldn’t be $100k loan for most med students. More like $200k. I see that youre from texas which has unusually low cost med schools. The rest of the nation pays twice as much …or more
If you took the full ride, would some or all of the parent and grandparent contribution to your college costs be available for medical school costs, if you get into one?
For medical school, you can probably assume $300-400k debt, unless you are in state in TX or NM and get into an in state public medical school. Better not to have any undergraduate debt going into medical school, and better if any money saved from choosing less expensive undergraduate school can be applied to medical school.
However, most aspiring pre-meds do not get into any medical school, so you need to consider the more common case of what you will do if you do not go to medical school, and how debt and money will affect that.
Look at it another way. It likely took your parents 20 years to save 100K. 70K (not counting tuition increases) represents 15 years of savings. Still think it is a small amount?
So, I was thinking about @TQfromtheU ‘Free. All day, every day!’
Keeping with ranking the possible scenario. I came up with these 4 list to All Free.
BS/MD in Same Texas school
UG tuition free(full ride w/ High SAT score)
100K loan for MD only
p/gp purchase 2 rm condo(with pros & cons owning)
For about 100K, parents/grandparents can ideally purchase condo or small house within 5 - 10 miles from the medical school in these locations, College station, Lubbock, San Antonio, Galveston and for Houston, Austin or Dallas around 150K.
Roommate’s rent will pay for your mortgage($600 - $800 months)
8 years down the road, house could double in value (200K)
pay back your p/gp and pay back the 100K loan, if your p/gp are very generous, I will keep the house for rental income.
Perfect Storm Scenario ‘Free. All day, every day!’
We’ll let you know in 8 years, if this BS/MD experiment worked?
OP - please tell me that you are making comparisons based on 4 year costs - and not just the first year x 4. For example, you are making adjustments for changes in family size (if older siblings graduate, etc). I am kind of surprised that based on your family income, Williams is not giving you more aid - they were very very generous to my pups, even though they ultimately decided against Williams in favor of Columbia and Stanford. The Williams FA office was SUPER helpful to us - they helped us figure out the 4 year costs of all the schools on our lists. From my perspective, it does not make sense to me that they would have the same net cost for 4 years as Bowdoin/Carleton (also great schools, but I thought they included more loans in their aid package).
My D was very close to going to Williams - she really loved it there, and there was no question that it would be worth attending for the net price / aid package they had offered us. While I remain delighted that she ended up at the right pick for her, it is still very far away from home, so I selfishly would also have been very happy had she attended Williams. If your parents are helping pay, have you asked them about their thoughts? Just the fact that you want to share your decision-making process with them may be more helpful to them - and to you - than you might think.
Talking with them in a “Hey, this whole thing is maddening and its only my whole entire future at stake, so you taught me since before kindergarten that to make good decisions, I first need to get good information, so here’s what I found so far…Am I missing something?”
Last, I just wanted to congratulate you on having such great choices - you are a great student and you have a great future ahead of you. I am sure you will make the right choice for your own situation.
Can you share what they did to figure it out? We will be dealing with year 1: 3 in school, year 2: 3 in school, year 3: 2 in school, year 4: 2 or possibly 1 in school (depending on graduating early). I’m struggling with coming up with the worst case scenario for total amount / how much year 1 financial aid offer will decrease over the 4 years.