<p>I just did some calculations, and it seems that if I graduate in the next 4 years, I will owe ~$140,000 WITHOUT interest...</p>
<p>CMU costs around $53,000 a year, and they only offered me a $18,000 grant.
That leaves me with around $35,000 to pay every year.</p>
<p>My parents make $80,000 combined, before taxes, plus we have a $14,000 per year mortgage, and I have 2 younger siblings who are 3 years younger than I am.</p>
<p>Looking at this large number of debt terrifies me, but I really like this school and I respect its prestige.</p>
<p>Is there any sort of reassurance someone can give me?</p>
<p>Is going to an elite school not worth this sum of debt at all?</p>
<p>Sorry, I can not give you any reassurance. I know several Civil Engineers and they are all struggling to find work or keep their jobs. They work in land development and public transportation (think roads, bridges, parking lots, subdivision layouts, utilities). Also isn’t Civil Engineering the lowest paid of the engineering professions?</p>
<p>There are several outstanding engineering schools that cost much, much less. Presumably you have been accepted to the flagship university in your state?</p>
<p>OP, we’re fortunate not to get into debt, so my perspective will be lacking. CMU is truly a great school, at least in the majors my son is in - comp sci and ECE. He and many of his sophomore classmates landed internships this summer at $25-35/hr, and job prospects after graduation are looking good now.<br>
I know nothing about the market for civil/structural engg - see if you can try to network with students with that major and get a feel for how they did during summers, did they have good opportunities for well paying internships and workstudy programs to reduce the debt, and most important, what kind of jobs they got at the end. Find out if they were able to get part time jobs during the school year. My S and his classmates even got offers for extended- 6/9 month employment; find out if this applies to Civil engg. One final note - at least of the upperclassmen that he knew of went to the CMU campus in the middle east in his senior year, and apparently they waive the tuition (or more) in exchange for some teaching responsibilities - I know nothing more about this since we were not interested; you may wish to investigate.</p>
<p>The kind of debt you’re talking about would be scary to me, but see if you can get the perspective of someone who’s been in that program.</p>
<p>There’s also a huge active thread in the parents section about this exact subject that you may wish to review.</p>
<p>Go look at some debt calculators. CB has a pile of them.
But, basically, 140,000, paid back over 10 years, at 8.5% would require $1,735/month.
Using more generous figures - assuming max gov. loans, you would need about 1540/month which would require an annual starting salary of around $110,000 to keep your debt at a reasonable level.
CMU is a great school, but that’s a lot of debt.</p>
<p>Go somewhere cheaper for undergrad, if you really like CMU that much there’s always grad school.</p>
<p>As a frame of reference, if you’re making $26,000 a year you get take-home pay of around $1800 a month. So, taking nemom’s debt calculator number, you can figure out a rough actual salary you’d get upon graduation. CMU Civil Engineers averaged $54,000 for starting salary this year, meaning you’d be dropping half your salary on your student loans. If you have to live in an expensive city for you job (say Pasadena where I am now), you can expect about $1200 for a one bedroom apartment. That would leave you with $600 a month for a car, insurance, groceries, entertainment, and savings for retirement. Not a good place to be.</p>
<p>Something isn’t adding up…with a household income of only 80,000, your efc would be around 13-15k-- leaving quite a bit of unmet need for CMU. Even with maxing out student loans per year-- you cannot borrow the amounts being proposed in OPs post-- unless you are taking private loans from a bank. The interest alone would consume you.
Is it possible you made an errors when you filled out your FAFSA-- or if the EFC is that high-- you likely have assets to spend down.
Something doesn’t add up-- you should return to admissions and revisit this.</p>
<p>I understand that this enormous debt is really frightening, and I feel like I’m in a similar position as that girl in the NY Times article, but she was studying Religious and Women Studies, which doesn’t pay as well as a civil engineer.</p>
<p>My mom assures me that this is something that I would take a chance in, just as she took a chance buying a house she couldn’t afford, and just as she took a chance in having 3 kids.</p>
<p>Am I being quixotic that I can somehow pay off these loans, with graduate loans on top of this?</p>
<p>FAFSA tells me that my EFC is 12k, which means that there is still 13k that I need to make up for, if my parents are able to shell out 12k a year, which can’t be a definite because my mother is unsure if her Post Office will stay open for the next few years.</p>
<p>I have an option of attending the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY City College. But it’s in upper Manhattan, and it’s about a 3 hour commute just to get there. Tuition is paid for by the program, but dorms, which does not include food, is 10k alone. </p>
<p>I worked so hard to finally be admitted into a “elite” school, and I feel like I’m throwing it all away by settling at a City University. I’m so torn. =/</p>
<p>If there’s a 3 hour commute to your other school, I’d choose CMU. That sounds like a terrible undergrad experience. You’d basically be showing up to take classes and then leaving again to get home before nightfall.</p>
<p>Some things I would suggest if you haven’t considered them:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Stafford/Perkins loans. They’re very low interest and you can borrow quite a bit on them. Subsidized versions of these loans mean that the government will even pay off all the interest on them until after you graduate. </p></li>
<li><p>Pell grants. I think these are somewhere in the $5k/year range for needy families. With a three-kid, $80k/year family, I think you’d probably meet the standards, but you’d have to talk with the university to be sure. </p></li>
<li><p>Negotiate. Did CUNY give you any financial aid? Is it better than CMU’s? If so, call CMU and use it to bargain with. Fax them the aid letter CUNY gave you. CMU may not choose to match their aid amount since it’s not a peer institution, but they may bump up your aid award.</p></li>
<li><p>Work study. You can make up to $2800 on your work study award while working a campus job, and most jobs will let you continue to work even after you’ve exceeded that amount. I made $12/hr at my job this year, which paid for all my books and supplies, and got me a nice resume booster too. </p></li>
<li><p>CivE is not a dying profession. Infrastructure will always need people. Whoever tells you this is just being silly. We’re in a depression, so of course everyone’s struggling to find jobs, but that doesn’t mean that if you get a degree in engineering you’re doomed to remain unemployed.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Pardon me, but taking on $140,000 in debt for college is - on the face of it - irrational.</p>
<p>At a 6% blended payback rate paid off in 10 years it’s about $1550 a month you’d owe.</p>
<p>Posts #3 and #9 have some good suggestions; you also might look at what work after graduation would qualify you for loan forgiveness.</p>
<p>Seek financial aid counseling ASAP, starting with CMU, to see how this future burden can be lessened. Get in person financial aid counseling hel[p!!!</p>
<p>P.S. Sounds like CMU is not meeting 100% of your financial need?</p>
<p>I should also add that a lot of CMU’s “estimated” costs on the site aren’t all that accurate. for example…</p>
<p>Food - If you’re in a tight bind for money, do what I did and tell them you have a food allergy so you can get off the meal plan. I bet you you’ll spend about 1/2 of what you would have on an actual plan.</p>
<p>Books and supplies - I spent MAYBE $150 on books this entire year. And I’m an English major, and we buy books up the butt. Borrow from the library or from your friends who are in that class and you’ll nowhere near approximate the $1000 they say it’ll cost on the site. </p>
<p>Personal/misc - If you’re conservative, you can spend much less than 1500. </p>
<p>Housing - if you get in a quad or triple, you can knock 1k off the “housing” section too. They’re rare and hard to get but it is a possibility.</p>
<p>I don’t think I am eligible for the Pell Grant:</p>
<p>"Students with a total family income up to $50,000 may be eligible for Pell Grants, though most Pell funding goes to students with a total family income below $20,000. "</p>
<p>I’m going to borrow as much federal loans as I can, but eventually I’m going to have to resort to private loans because these federal ones won’t be enough… =/</p>
<p>CUNY didn’t offer me any financial aid because tuition is only like $5000 a semester, and it’s completely paid for by the Honors College. </p>
<p>According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CivE</p>
<p>“Civil engineers are expected to have employment growth of 24 percent over the projections decade”</p>
<p>which seems to the opposite of what Poster #2 says, though it is true that CivE has the lowest average starting salaries.</p>
<p>I called CMU’s admissions office and they told me that the average debt of students graduating from CMU is 30k-40k, but they do not know how much the parents are borrowing.</p>
<p>If you did not call financial aid directly, or did not submit the form requesting that they renegotiate, do it as soon as possible. You don’t need other offers to renegotiate. You can request that they reconsider on the basis of the gap between their offer and your EFC. A gap of 13K is enormous and accounts for half of the debt that you are questioning. It also accounts for a substational amount of the difference between your debt and the CMU average according to the admissions office. They are under no obligation to meet your EFC but will at least take the request seriously.</p>
<p>In addition, when your younger siblings start college, this will cut your EFC in half, and should increase your aid correspondingly, lowering the total amount.</p>
<p>It’s good that you recognize a potential, future problem. </p>
<p>FAFSA looks at one year (previous year) and projects unto the current academic year. You will need to file FAFSA every year as long as you get a scholarship and government guaranteed loans. </p>
<p>DS last year, 2005-06, he got extra institutional funds, workstudy, and something else that I forget, based on the tax return and FAFSA filing. We had, as everyone had, income reversals, his student PLUS loans, and investment losses - however, the FAFSA does not recognize certain liabilities (PLUS Loan) were offset by DS’s UGMA fund (dedicated towards education). For us, 2005-06, it was better to take loans than to have DS spend his assets (inverted yield curve). … </p>
<p>As the FAFSA changes because of your education and the siblings education expenses, CMU may alter your future financial assistance. You will want to confirm this with the CMU.</p>
<p>You won’t have ‘thrown it all away’ if you attend CUNY. You’ll still be a smart, well-studied student who will do very well anywhere.
Talk to financial aid at CMU and show them your figures. Talk to an adult you trust, with some understanding of finances and see what they say.
Don’t , dont’ don’t take on debt you don’t fully understand.
Do sit down and figure out the actual cost of CUNY, assuming you stay in a dorm.
You can figure on picking up some money working during the summer/school year, but that may not be much. SUmmer jobs are good, but unless you live at home, they don’t end up providing a lot.</p>
<p>Actually, S has food allergies too and we got him out of the plan.</p>
<p>When you sign up for housing and dining much later in May-- there’s a “special needs” form-- that’s where you add information.</p>
<p>Diet reasons can include being kosher, low sodium, diabetic, allergies, etc. People with life threatening allergies cannot eat easily in a restaurant.</p>
<p>You’ll need medical documentation if you go that route.</p>
<p>It’s a substantial savings if you actually are going to cook – but if you plan to eat on campus anyways-- you will be coughing up $7 at most eateries.<br>
If money really is tight-- there’s always off-campus housing and you will still meet tons of people in orientation and in classes. If you already know people from your high school, etc. living off campus (within a few blocks) it is an option.</p>
<p>CMU doesn’t cost $53,000.
Tuition is $42000 – there is still quite a bit in the estimated cost of attendance that is flexible - personal expenses and books total $3k alone-- and no one needs to spend that much.
You can realistically attend CMU for much less than the total in the financial aid budget.</p>
<p>No person should take on this kind of debt for anything other than medical school or a new house. I have friends that graduated with $20,000-$25000 of debt and are still paying it off 15 years later. These payments will affect your future financial decisions, ability to take risks, and have a family down the road. </p>
<p>While a college choice is important, it isn’t vital. I went to the University of North Dakota (yes, Princeton Review’s #1 in the category “Students Study the Least”), which is all we could afford at the time. The coursework was easy and bore little relevance to my future real world job. HOWEVER, since I graduated, I’ve won numerous awards in my field, published nationally recognized curriculum, and been selected as one of 35 teachers to interview for a NASA Educator Astronaut position. I say these things not to toot my own horn, but to let you know that your college of choice does not define you - what you do after you get your piece of paper does. Please, do NOT consider yourself a failure if you choose not to attend CMU because of money - if you are motivated and smart, you’ll do well in life regardless of the school you attend.</p>
Whoever tells you this is just being silly. We’re in a depression, so of course everyone’s struggling to find jobs, but that doesn’t mean that if you get a degree in engineering you’re doomed to remain unemployed.</p></li>