College Experience vs Debt Free

College Search & Selection
1

Good day everyone.

First of all, sorry for the length!

I am currently a freshman at the City College of New York through the Macaulay Honors College majoring in Computer Science. I applied to transfer to Binghamton University for the next year. I was accepted and need to decide by this Monday, but I am having trouble on choosing what to do, so I thought it’d be a good idea to get the input of people who don’t know me on a personal level.

Macaulay at City College offers me financial stability. Not only am I getting a free education, but since I am Pell eligible, I get full FAFSA and TAP, which means that I get around 4-5K back per year. City is also fairly close to my house, so my commute takes around 10-15 minutes. There’s also the benefits the Macaulay Honors program gives me, such as priority registration, a free MacBook, money for study abroad purposes, and the “honors” label within the CUNY system.
Nevertheless, besides the financial aspect, I feel like staying at City College will hinder me on both a social, personal, and perhaps academic level. My social life here suchs—though I am a friendly person, it seems like people here choose to keep their social lives at home. By that I mean that since this is a commuter school, most people don’t come here to make friends but rather to just get a degree. I have people I talk to, but it’s hard to make a connection on a deeper level with anyone here. Clubs are not really an option, since I am not really interested in any of the few the school has. Moreover, since a lot of people from my high school come here, I will probably be sticking to them.

Another thing to consider is that, of course, I will be staying at home with my family. From my perspective, this will prevent me from growing on a personal and mental level and becoming the person that I want to be. As a closeted gay guy due to a Latino close-minded family, I will most likely continue to be in the closet for the next three years, just like I have for the past six. I will also not gain that sense of independence and the opportunity of exploring life outside this Latino bubble I have been in since high school (I went to an exclusively Hispanic high school).

Now, Binghamton University entails the “college experience” I actually want. I’d be dorming, which is what I have always wanted. I would be outside of my comfort zone, be able to explore my sexuality, make actual, meaningful friendships, and join clubs that I am interested in. On an academic level, even though Binghamton is not Stony Brook, I still think that it is stronger than City College for Computer Science. Because a lot of professors here are not that good, students have to study the material on their own. My major adviser is also not that helpful. Binghamton seems to be more recognized than City College, has more opportunities extracurricular tech opportunities outside the classroom, and a better recruiting for jobs.

Despite all of this, financially, Binghamton is not the better option. For a low-income family, my financial aid packet is unaffordable without loans. Binghamton costs around 26.5K, and after FAFSA and TAP, I’m looking at around 15.5K per year. I was offered work study of 2K, and federal loans of 6.5K, but there’s still a gap of 7K. My family can’t afford to pay that, so I’d have to work during the summer, and then pay the rest with either a private loan or a PLUS loan. I don’t really
Also to consider: I had been accepted into Binghamton’s school of engineering, but due to me taking some time to decide on committing, they gave my seat to someone else and placed me in the college of arts and sciences, so I’d have to transfer to the engineering school after a year. They said as long as I maintain good grades, since I had already been accepted, they have no reason not to reject me, and I already have an edge over other applicants. However, anything could go wrong, and from what I have researched, it is really hard/competitive to transfer into CS if you’re not already in the engineering school, so I am not sure.

I have always wanted to have that All-American college experience, but due to the promise of a free education, I went with the financially smarter option. I don’t know whether I made the right choice. I have the opportunity to get it, but is it what’s best for me? Is it worth the debt and financial strain? Everyone I know tells me it’s not, but they don’t know the full reasons. I really feel like I am gonna regret it.

Again, I apologize for the length of this. I really appreciate anyone reading it and helping me. Thanks!

TL;DR: Is the college experience worth 32-34K of debt after undergrad? Or should I stay at my nearby college and commute in exchange for a free education?

2

First congrats on your success at getting the honors program and acceptance to Bing. I wish it were possible for every student to have the idealized college experience that people imagine. But it simply isn’t. Please understand that the vast majority of kids in this country don’t have a four year dorm experience at all. If you could afford Bing on just the Pell and your own loans, it would be a different story. But the Plus and Private loans will be debt for your parents.

How do they feel about taking on that kind of debt? You say your family is low income so I imagine it will be a hardship for them. You may believe that you will have no problem paying it all off after college, but that is not always reality. Even if you get a job that can support that kind of debt, why start your life that way?

You have the opportunity to graduate with an excellent degree without debt and without putting a strain on your family. You have your entire life to make friends and learn about yourself. I wish these financial considerations didn’t have to come into play, but they do.

In my opinion, its not worth the debt. Stay at City. Take advantage of every opportunity you can to build your resume so you can get an excellent job when you graduate and be grateful that you have the chance for an affordable college experience. So many people don’t get that.

3

You can still transfer as a junior. In your position, I think I would give it one more year at CCNY and save the money for now. You would need to reapply to your major at Binghamton anyway; I’d stay the course and apply again from where you are. If you go into A&S at Bing, you’ll have all your eggs in one basket as far as applying to CS there; if you stay put, you can apply to the CS departments at multiple SUNY campuses (several of which are higher ranked for CS than Bing). If you have the grades, you could even try applying to some private U’s that take a lot of transfers and offer excellent need-based financial aid. Cornell, for one… but also consider schools outside of New York. It’s possible that you could end up with less of a financial “gap” at a private U than a SUNY, if you can get into a top school that has the $ to meet full need for transfers. You must have had a strong HS record to get into Macaulay; if you’re getting top grades at CCNY, you could have more options than you realize.

I completely understand what you’re saying about putting your self-actualization on the back burner - three years is a long time at this important phase of your life. Still, every year you stay at home/CCNY is at least 15K in your pocket, and that’s real money - each year’s worth of debt will affect your life and options for years to come.

So in my view, if you want the combination of graduating with a SUNY (or elite private U) degree and having the chance to go away to college and reinvent yourself, I would take the compromise route of spending one more year at home/CCNY and transferring as a junior. The difference in debt-load would be significant. Maybe you can save up some more money between now and then, and research whether there are private U’s you should apply to in addition to SUNYs. It’s not a perfect solution but to me it sounds better than either transferring now, or not transferring at all.

4

@AquaPT has excellent advice. Even if you did transfer into Binghamton as a junior, If the debt load is around $13.5K per year, then you’re looking at $27K, which is a manageable amount to repay. For 3 years it would be about $40K - which isn’t bad, but more than you want to borrow generally speaking. (I am not counting any summer earnings and assuming that you’d have to borrow the full amount.)

City College is great especially for the engineering and computer/mathematical sciences. I don’t think Binghamton is more well known than CCNY for that. You can get an excellent computer science education there, if you decided to stay all 4 years. This is all the more true since you’d have to transfer to the engineering college at Binghamton. That could possibly delay your graduation, making the cost more expensive; also, what if you don’t get into the engineering college? That’s why I think it’s safer to stay at CCNY or wait the extra year to go to Bing - or, as aquapt points out, somewhere else.

There’s really no such thing as a singular “All-American” college experience, and if there was one, what you’re doing - commuting from home to a college nearby you - is probably the closest you can get to it. Most Americans don’t have enough money to send their kids away to live somewhere else for college, so the majority of Americans actually commute to college. Most of the narratives made about college in movies, TV and books are written by people who are comparatively wealthier than the average American and therefore were able to have that experience.