<p>I have an EFC of around 10k. 3k on my part & 7k from parents.
Could taking out a 10k loan, in addition to 10k in savings, be okay for my undergraduate years? My parent would cosign. I just want to use the loans to help lower the monthly payments on my parents' part. </p>
<p>I plan to go to med school as well. I would hope that the debt wouldn't hurt me from getting loans for medical school.</p>
<p>Federal loan freshman year is $5500. They disburse the loan in the fall semester and then again in the spring semester. So $2750 per semester(minus the fees they charge)
You may get away with just a Federal loan. If your EFC is 10K, that leaves $4500 remaining for your parents.</p>
<p>If you takeout a 10,000 loan in year one, it will have accrued almost 4900 interest by year 10.</p>
<p>The maximum amount YOU can get is $5500 as a freshman. Anything else your parents have to get. The outside lenders act like YOU are getting the loan, but it’s really your parents’ credit report they are using and the loan will go on their credit record AND yours. It just gives them an additional person to go after when you are talking about co signed loans. Better your parents try to pay what they can, and you too, and your parents take out PLUS and make a separate agreement with you to repay it. That way if they or you die, the loan is forgiven. In private loans, both parties are equally on the hook and there is often no life insurance aspect built into the loan.</p>
<p>Starting med school with existing debt is NEVER a good idea. It appears that you’re talking about $10k per year for each of your four years of graduate school . . . do not underestimate the impact of starting out in life $40k in debt! Then add to that the cost of medical school, and you’re looking at indentured servitude for YEARS after you graduate . . . and that’s assuming that everything goes according to plan (and it often doesn’t).</p>
<p>The “once upon a time” world where doctors made big money right out of med. school doesn’t exist anymore . . . and the larger your debt, the fewer options you’ll have.</p>