<p>I am currently ~50k, and will be about 80-90k in debt when I graduate (and I planned so that I could be up to 120k). However, I was making the decision between Brown and a much lesser state school, so it’s not entirely analogous.</p>
<p>That said, here’s my advice (from my experience with it all):
- Talk to financial aid. However, don’t expect too much. They operate on an east-coast finances presumption (i.e. parents have saved for your schooling rather than expect to pay out of their salaries).</p>
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<li><p>If you have a younger sibling who will end up in college, talk to financial aid (if your federal EFC is ~40-50k, you could be looking at ~20-30k in scholarships when your sibling enters, provided your parent’s income doesn’t increase)</p></li>
<li><p>YOU cannot take out these loans. Technically speaking, my parents have taken out most of my debt (in PLUS loans). I will be spending the first year of my working career deferring my federal loans, and paying solely to my parents. But your parents need to take on the risk without any recourse if you “default.” This is really stressful and only barely works with my family. The most loans you can take out under solely your name is 50k. And that’s if you qualify for Perkins loans. Without that qualification, you’ll only be able to take out 38k. And those will be at 6.8% interest, compounding immediately. And anything above that (in PLUS) will be at 7.9%, compounding immediately. And all loans must be paid off within 10 years.</p></li>
<li><p>Working in school isn’t fun. Yes, a lot of people do it, but you likely won’t want to. And really, on a cost-benefit analysis, if the work isn’t enjoyable, it ends up not being worth it (especially if it precludes you from taking 5 classes). You say “I can earn X in school,” but you should probably halve that to get a realistic number on what you’ll actually be willing to/able to earn.</p></li>
<li><p>It CAN be worth it. Provided the educational experience is going to be significantly different, and the earnings power/capability to be working exactly where you want later on is rather different. From internship offers I already have received, for me in the field I’ve entered (CS), Brown is far better and I likely will have >=$15k/year difference in starting salary between here and my state option (and I have always been frugal enough that I ought be able to put all of this into paying down debts). Furthermore, I’m now able to get work pretty much exactly where I want, which wasn’t true at my state school (at all). I don’t think this holds with Berkeley. Furthermore, I AM getting scholarship aid from Brown, and my family’s actual contribution seems to be around yours. FURTHERMORE, I didn’t really like my state school. I had gone to a “register for courses!” day, and the advisor basically told me that I wasn’t going to be able to take classes that were important to me but outside my major (especially language classes that I’d need to take every semester), because they weren’t necessary and might not fit if I got into the wrong section. He wasn’t even willing to entertain the notion that I could delay taking the classes necessary for my major (because really, I couldn’t, because then I’d be off-track, etc. etc.).</p></li>
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<p>Basically, I’d say if you have to go more than 120k in debt, it’s likely not going to be worth it (especially given that the alternative is Berkeley). If you could get it under 80k, then you might have an argument, but you probably need a perfect storm of other factors besides you like Brown a bit more.</p>
<p>The “What-if” argument works just as well the other way: if you come to Brown and go into massive debt, then have to work hard and live cheaply in order to pay it back, are you going to ask “what if I’d gone to Berkeley and been debt free? Could I have done that study abroad program? Could I have done Teach for America?” etc.</p>