I believe that the student will be in the Lawrence conservatory for a BM in Saxophone with Jazz sax emphasis. As such, it’ll be basically impossible to graduate in 4 years if OP does something else than the BM. (2/3 of the coursework is in music and there’s no space for electives.)
Lawrence does offer a 5-year BA+BM plan but does OP’s scholarship cover 5 years?
Even the 5-year plan is extremely difficult and the college is clear that some majors can’t be accomodated (I don’t think it’ll be the case for economics) and that it can’t prepare for graduate school as there won’t be as much depth as in a regular major where, typically, some electives are used to complement the major.
@Coloradosenior: where would the 80K come from? Bank of mom and dad (ie., they’d lend you the money and you’d have to pay back)? Or would your parents take on Parent PLUS loans? Because you, yourself, can only borrow 5.5K (Stafford loans).
What’s your parents’ budget?
Can you defer at UChicago for a year? Or defer at Lawrence?
It sounds like you need to take a gap year and find universities that will provide you better scholarships while providing you with an atmosphere close to what you’d find at UChicago - Reed, Carleton, and W&M come to mind, but I don’t know whether they’d be affordable.
I think the student/parents need to explore exactly what Lawrence would be able to work out with degree plans. Maybe taking summer commuter - CC stuff in home state or other in-state to help complete the degree with 4 years at Lawrence.
At this point the OP may not have a lot of options, and may not want to take a gap year.
One can do a whole lot w/o the big debt (sounds like big for this family; it would be big for our family).
Are your parents willing to borrow $50000+ b/c you can’t. They are going to have to either borrow the $$ or cosign with you, but it still makes the debt theirs either way.
If you major in chem or physics, you are going to have to go to graduate school. (I’m not overly familiar with econ.)
Do you have any other options? I understand the cannot afford scenario. I have a couple of very gifted, high-achieving kids. Their school choices are 100% dependent on affordability and not acceptance. We don’t qualify for enough FA for schools to come down to their bare-bones budget. So, off to lower ranked, cheaper options. Guess what? They thrive and shine.
Mom, thousands of chem and physics majors do not go to grad school. No, you don’t become a theoretical physicist with just a BS, but you get a job at a bank or credit card company or insurance company or an airline or any large corporation which hires smart kids to do risk management or commodities hedging or financial modeling.
@blossom You’re right. It depends on career goals. Working in a bank is so far removed from anything my physics loving kid would want to do that this not something that even crossed my mind.
Some of the top physics grads in the world work in corporate jobs. And if your physics loving kid has never been exposed to any of these types of jobs, no wonder it is far removed. But you can’t be interested in something you don’t know about.
I know a brilliant physics grad working at a pharmaceutical company modeling how infectious diseases spread. Some theory based on waves (I am not a physicist). Apparently the natural world has a lot of different phenomena which can help explain other phenomena. So if you know how to mathematically calculate one thing it can help save lives somewhere else.
OP asked what a reasonable threshold is and we usually put that at 27k, for the 4 years total, same as the max of the Direct student loans.
But many of us can tell you how hard that 300+/mo is for our kids to pay, even with good jobs, for ten years running. You’ll want a place to live, probably a car, a social life. You may want to invest, buy a home, travel, marry.
It’s a bit late to be figuring this out. See what the real possibilities are to dbl major at Lawrence. And know this: you don’t always need a full second major. Some of the right electives, the right summer work, maybe a responsible (admin type) job at college for some hours per week, and your future possibilities expand.