Attending Georgia Tech with OOS tuition. Is it worth the 100k debt?

Hi all, so I was accepted into the Biomedical Engineering major and from hearing what other OOS students get, Tech gave me a pretty generous financial aid award.

Even with the $12,400 Georgia Tech grant, work-study, Pell and a EFC of ~$3,600 that still leaves me with having to take out $28,000 in loans to meet the cost of attendance for just the first year. GATech isn’t so generous towards OOS students from what I’ve read so that Georgia Tech grant may not apply for the remaining 3yrs. If my calculations are correct, I will be paying a grand total of ~$150,000. With the help of my parents, I will be graduating with ~$100,000 in debt.

If I go to a SUNY, one of my state schools I won’t be in even a quarter of that debt. Any guidance and advice would be much appreciated.

Not worth it. Especially, given that as a PELL student, your parents are probably strapped as it is. You won’t make up that differential. If you are a STEM major and in the top 10% of your class, SUNY tuition is completely waived. Check and see if you qualify for that. You simply are not going to make so much more coming from GT with the same major that you can consider it a worthwhile investment. $20K, maybe. $100K, nope. And that’s after putting your parents who are low income out $50K that they could sorely use. Where are they getting that kind of money anyways? If they borrow from PLUS for you, we are talking 7%+ interest rates. Also, where do you think you will be getting that $28K per year in loans on your own? Lenders don’t give Undergrads that much money. Also the cost only goes up each year with these schools, about 5% each year, from what I can see.

Thanks for the response! I’m a first generation so my parents and I don’t have any real experience or much guidance on the subject of student loans or college for that matter. They’re urging me to bite the bullet and go to Georgia Tech since it’s my first preference and because it’s a better school. They are considering taking out a HELOC for its lower interest to help me pay for it.

Georgia Tech is listed as #7 in terms of public school salaries.Starting Median is $60,700. SB is 48,600. That difference may be simply a function of there being more engineers in the pool from GT. But GT is rated as one of the best engineering schools in the country. I am sure they are listed as #4 for undergrads in engineering, #4 for biomedical too. Which SUNY were you considering?

http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/best-schools-by-type/state-schools

If your parents were in better shape, were not so low income, I’d say go ahead. But you are in a better position than anyone else to gauge how risky this is to them. I know that I would never have put my parents in a risky position. They had enough challenges already. I had a very good idea where they were financially, and appreciated all they did for me and would do for me. I know they would have put themselves at risk to give me what I wanted in terms of education as it rated so highly for them, but with less risky alternatives right at hand, I would not do that.

My son attends GT (we are in-state) and I think it’s a great school. However, I do not think it’s worth $100,000 of debt. Yes, a degree from GT may help you find your first job more easily. After your first job, no one cares where you got your degree. $100,000 will take you so long to repay. Please don’t do that to yourself. I would never allow either of my children to take out that much debt for college

I go to GT and it is a really good school, but it is in no way worth $100k worth of debt. Please do not do this. I don’t know a whole lot about biomedical engineering, but I believe it is one of those majors where you need a graduate degree to do anything with. If that is correct, no one will care about where you got your undergraduate degree from. If you must go into debt, at least wait until you’re ready to go to graduate school to do so. Otherwise you’ll just be piling even more money onto the $100k and it will be very difficult to ever pay it back.

@lostaccount Those attributes make the school very attractive for me which is why it’s my first pick. Factoring debt and costs though, I might choose Stony Brook over GATech. Also BME is tentative; I also have interests in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Chemical Engineering.