<p>Son was accepted to MSC (for Physics or Math). Thoughts?</p>
<p>How big of loans?</p>
<p>I should have waited before posting - we have not received that info yet</p>
<p>Similar situation…
12K for delaware (no loan)
whereas 22K for CMU CIT (with loan)</p>
<p>I will have a similar situation.
I am worried that taking out 25-30k a year in loans is worth it for a CMU engineering degree</p>
<p>On campus desk shifts pay $7-10 / hour, and involve sitting and doing homework. These can be coupled with “more prestigious” jobs such as RA/CA for > $6k per year. Ambitious Sophomores/Juniors in CIT (or better yet CS, or having some programming/analytic ability) with good to very good internships can definitely pull in ~10-15k over the summer. In the best cases (that i’ve heard of) summer deals can be worth as much as $25k (before taxes of course :P). I would not be surprised to hear some of the very best internships along with on campus work net > 30k per year for sophomore and junior years.</p>
<p>Probably all of these, except for the internship, would be equally obtainable coming from pitt… but realize that it is possible for the student to help make ends meet. That said, I wouldn’t bank on getting the elite internship, and it would certainly be hard if you did get it to have to just plow it all back into tuition and still remain motivated.</p>
<p>Still, this is one way to combat CMU’s knack for breaking wallets</p>
<p>Got our numbers finally - CMU assumes loan of 5,500 per year, the cost we are expected to pay is higher than we can do. In actuality loans of 15,000 per year would be required to be paired with significant family financial stress.</p>