<p>Would never do that for my own children; probably would laugh in their faces if they asked. I had about $300K in loans coming out of medical school. That is something I loathe and wouldn’t wish on anyone, even for a medical degree. Use your talents and find a school willing to give you merit aid. You will get a tremendous return on investment for each dollar someone else contributes to your education. </p>
<p>I am probably one of the most aggressive people when it comes to encouraging people to invest in themselves. </p>
<p>The only way your plan makes any sense is if you intend to take your education and flee to a country like Cuba where your debtors cannot collect, never again setting foot in the United States. </p>
<p>Basically, you should not do this. You need to find another plan, really. </p>
<p>What state do you live in, what are your stats. It’s July, but it still might be possible to find a school for you for the fall. </p>
<p><<<
I was thinking I’d apply for IBR to keep the payments manageable
<<<<</p>
<p>You wont be allowed to do that with 90% of your loans. Only about $30k would qualify for IBR. All the rest ($270k) would NOT qualify because those would either be private loans or Plus loans, and neither qualify for IBR.</p>
<p>ONLY federal student loans by the student (about $30k for undergrad) is eligible for IBR.</p>
<p>Boy, when you see CRD saying, “no’” then you really have to stop, cuz he is usually first to lead lemmings over the cliff of large loans. ;)</p>
<p>Don’t go into this planning on relying on IBR. </p>
<p>Well if I’m ineligible for any other repayment plans than this is just impossible. Thanks everyone for your input, I’ll speak to my parents about trying to reapply to some other schools</p>
<p>It may not be that easy to discuss this with parents for OP. I’ve known some parents (kids too, and people in general like this) and they won’t budge. The be all to end all is a "name college’ It is very possible that the parents have their focus on the OP going to this school. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that if OP signs on those loans, he’s equally culpable If his parent want to pay and feel they can afford these loans, that’s their business. But the OP should make it clear that he doesn’t want to take the loans and that they would hurt his future terribly. If parents want to do this they can. </p>
<p>Do the numbers on the loans and you’ll see how much the monthly payments will be. As others have pointed out if parents can’t pay that now how on earth do they expect to do so for the next 20 years? Or expect a teenager to make this commitment and a 21 year old to pay on it?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL, You got that right!. </p>
<p>Well I showed my mom this thread and her reaction was not very good. It certainly didn’t help that everybody in here started off by telling me my parents were idiots. She told me to do whatever I want as long as I have a plan, so I guess I’ll take a gap year, work and save money for school, and then re-apply to cheaper schools next year. I think that’s a pretty good plan.</p>
<p><<<<
Well I showed my mom this thread and her reaction was not very good. It certainly didn’t help that everybody in here started off by telling me my parents were idiots. She told me to do whatever I want as long as I have a plan, >>>></p>
<p>Actually, her reaction was a healthy one. She got knocked-upside-the-head with the truth and realized that she was pushing you down a horrible path. I guess a smack from cyberspace can do wonders. :)</p>
<p>now, start a new thread with your stats, major, how much your family will pay, etc, and we’ll help you come up with a strategy and list that will work.</p>
<p>{{ hugs to you and mom }}</p>
<p>So how can students from middle class backgrounds afford to got to NYU? I’ve read that the average debt students graduate with is $35,000. I thought that they hardly give merit aid?</p>
<p>^^^
That is only counting fed student loans. NYU doesnt know what loans parents are taking out. And who knows how many kids commute.</p>
<p>I suspect that many true middle class kids do not go there.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>this is so untrue. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not too many can. Those that can, their parents save up money over their child’s entire life, the parents borrow money and the student borrows money, but not like your talking about. </p>
<p>It doesn’t sound like your parents have saved up, or are willing to own most of the debt. Now it’s probably too much for them to borrow safely. </p>
<p>Though I agree with mom2collegekids, I don’t think a gap year is necessarily the right answer either. I think we should first see if there is anything that you can do now to still get into a good college for the fall. Are you sure they can’t come up with more than $10K per year? That’s unlikely to get it done. </p>
<p>Tomorrow, make a phone call to your high school and see if there is any administrative personnel there over the summer who can process your transcript and send it to colleges. If not, ask when they will come back. There are some creative ideas possible. </p>
<p>I think you can use this thread that you have already made, but do list your stats and what you are interested in studying, separate your SAT into CR, M and W because many automatic scholarships just use CR+M. </p>
<p>If the parents limit is $10k, then it becomes much harder to find an affordable school for fall 14. check out that thread with cheap OOS schools (adding in a 5500 student loan).</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>NYU CAS</p>
<p><<<</p>
<p>is that the college of arts and sciences? what is your career goal.</p>
<p>If @classicrockerdad tell you not to take the loans, you KNOW it is a bad idea. Sorry if your mom is offended by this thread, but this is one of the worst plans proposed out here in a long time. And when parents are the ones pushing it, it is just crazy. Glad to hear you are making a new plan. </p>
<p>@WarrenGregulator – I think you are mistaken in assuming that NYU is drawing from a lot of “middle class” students – my guess is that if you looked at the numbers you’d find that their parents trend more to the affluent side of the equation. There are, indeed, some who are borrowing far more than they can reasonably afford – but it’s probably more common for students in that group to drop out of college mid-way through than to get their degrees. The problem is that sooner or later they find that they can no longer qualify for new loans because the balance on the loans they already have is too high – so they are forced out. </p>
<p>NYU is very generous with merit aid to roughly 5% of their incoming students – that is based on stats or other factors that make the applicant particularly attractive to them – but you aren’t in that group. </p>
<p>Given your parents’ income, I find it a little surprising that they can’t afford to put more toward your school. I was earning under $50K when my d. was in school, but felt that I could come up with at least $10K a year – my personal plan was to make a contribution each year that was roughly 50% cash, 50% PLUS loans - meaning that I felt my contribution as a parent could be up to about $20K a year – and of course my d. was also taking Stafford loans. </p>
<p>I realize that your parents might also have all sorts of legitimate expenses that I don’t have – but the point is that I think that most $150K earners would be able to contribute more. As was posted by others, if they can’t afford more toward your college on that income, that says something about their level of sophistication when it comes to making financial decisions about borrowing – or perhaps their cash flow problem is due at least in part to other debt they are already carrying?</p>
<p>It sounds like you are making the right decision now – I think you’ve dodged a bullet. A gap year isn’t a bad thing and I disagree with the posters who are encouraging you to apply to colleges that still have openings for the fall. Certainly it makes sense to look at those schools – but the options are going to be extremely limited there. You’ve got good stats and may be able to attract substantial merit money at a different college if you apply for fall of 2015. </p>
<p>So do your research now, think about what you want to major in and where you might get merit aid, and no more ED apps. This time around it should be RD so that you will be able to compare offers in the spring-- and don’t overlook the public U’s in your home state. Your primary goal for fall of 2015 is a financial safety.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that you might want to go to grad school, and the reputation of the school where you earn your graduate degree may be more important to your long-term career prospects than undergrad. At the graduate level there really is no limit to how much you can borrow and still have the IBR protections – so it makes sense to keep undergrad debt low enough that you will be able to fund grad school if needed. The federal direct loans you take as an undergrad can be deferred while you are in grad school – that is not he case with private loans. </p>
<p>How do kids go there? Well, we are upper income, and it would have been a stretch, but my oldest had money saved from day 1 for college. Birthday money, allowance, gift money, plus he worked during high school. So he had a nice hunk of change by the time he went to college. He also worked summers while in college, sometimes working 3 jobs. So he could have comfortably paid $15K a year for college and some with the DIrect loans. If he’d stayed at home and commuted, we could have brought the cost down to $50K a year easily, and that would have meant about $35K for us, the parents to pay. We had some money saved, we paid some out of current income as your parents were planning to do and we’d have borrowed. But we would not have had our son borrow $60K+ a year, nor would we have for any school. </p>
<p>We did borrow for oldest and have just paid it off 15 years after he started college, because we paid as we went along. Very painful but it lets you know exactly what you are taking on. </p>
<p>I told you how some people in our area are doing it. These are upper income folks and they ran into snags along the way, financially. But some people did save for college and also do not spend up to their incomes so they can afford to pay for their kids’ school. Taking out some loans is not a terrible thing, but for an 18 year old to take out that amount is crazy.</p>
<p>We financed college costs similar to NYU on a similar family income. BUT we planned to do this…and had really no other debt except our very low mortgage. Our kids took the Direct Loans, and my whole salary paid college bills only. My husband’s salary paid our other bills.</p>
<p>Both kids had merit scholarships…one had a rather good one, the other a smaller one. </p>
<p>I will tell you frankly, if we had needed to borrow the ENTIRE coat of attendance, our kids would have gone to different colleges.</p>
<p>WOW, I’m shocked! How could anyone encourage their child to get into $300,000 of debt! I guess it is more of a culture clash than anything else. It amazes me that the OP was even debating attending going to NYU.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If the idea of going to college was to make more money after graduating, taking a forced gap year has a significant net cost because it will delay entry into the professional work force by a year replacing it with a year of a job requiring a HS diploma. </p>
<p>If the OP doesn’t look for an opportunity, he/she will surely not find one. </p>
<p>I’m really good at finding street parking in large cities. Most people don’t even try. The difference is that I actually go in believing that there are spots available. I’m rarely disappointed, and I rarely look long. </p>
<p>Also, many schools have spring admissions. </p>
<p>@calmom If you actually look at the colleges still accepting for fall, there are some good options to consider, including many of the SUNYs and most of the CUNYs.</p>