<p>So, I was reading an article a couple years ago that the average debt of a college grad is 27k. Colorado Boulder is ~53k a year. They are giving me nearly 14k in grants, and they also are giving me a scholarship of 5k a year. Basically, 20k a year of free money.</p>
<p>33k (at best) multiplied by 4 is 132k. My fafsa's family EFC number is like 00024 </p>
<p>They also didn't give enough loans to cover around 30k each year (which means I'd have to pay it straight up?), but they told me I can apply for another loan to cover it all...</p>
<p>Anyways, I"m a computer science student in their engineering college. This seems like a hugeee debt. Not even a doctor could probably pay this off. 10 years or something too? 7% interest? over 200k total? Am I looking at this the wrong way, or is there something I'm missing?</p>
<p>Thanks...</p>
<p>Aren’t statistics fun? Knowing an average is great, but you also need to know the range of the data and the standard error around the mean. Details, details.</p>
<p>With that COA you must be OOS for CU. Public universities like OOS students as they pay substantially higher tuition and they give them relatively little FA as their mandate is to support IS students whose families have been paying taxes to support these instituitions.</p>
<p>You’re not missing anything. Outside of UVA and UNC-CH, unless you get merit money or there is a tuition agreement with your state, OOS publics are generally very expensive, often more so than a private with strong FA.</p>
<p>Makes a lot of sense… </p>
<p>So, would you say this is basically a college I will not be able to attend? It seems that way… But hey thanks so much.</p>
<p>What would you say be a reasonable debt for me?</p>
<p>In your situation, I would take on as little debt as possible. The federal loans are a good absolute limit.</p>
<p>Yes, I do want to take the least debt, but what would you say a “decent” number would be? 20k, 50k, 80k, 120k? Or maybe, what would the max debt be? lol</p>
<p>There’s a limit to how much you can get in federal student loans - and that’s the maximum you should take on. Period. It’s $5,500 your first year, slightly more in subsequent years. Total is $27k, I believe.</p>
<p>The additional loans that you were “offered” at Boulder were Parent Plus loans. Those are loans that your parents would have to take out - not you. If they applied and were denied (due to bad credit), then you’d be eligible for an additional $4k/year in student loans . . . but that is MORE debt than you should take on!</p>
<p>My son was accepted to UC Boulder a couple years ago. He also got some good aid, but not enough. He was hoping to get a full tuition scholarship, but he was aware that he could not go if the scholarship wasn’t big enough. It wasn’t, and he didn’t go.</p>
<p>We just didn’t feel that UCB OOS was worth that much money. Do you have more affordable options?</p>
<p>^UColorado goes by CU, I’m guessing because of the overlap with the UCs and UCB, kind of like The OSU.</p>
<p>@dodgersmom but that means It’s not even additional! Just something I would have to pay instead xD Thanks for all your info :)</p>
<p>@kelsmom Yeah, Boulder isn’t even that amazing in my field. It’s really solid though at 39 on usnews, just not deserving enough of their huuuge OOS price 
And I guess I have more, but Hawaii (my state)… It isn’t good for computer science. Not very good job market sadly. </p>
<p>I don’t even know if I should go to college now lol. I might be stuck with air force or something in that regard…</p>
<p>I never want to see a student take out more than the $27k max Fed limit. And that total is for 4 years.</p>