<p>Hi I am a senior in NYC and want to major in Computer Science. Right now my choice is between CUNY CCNY and SUNY Stony Brook.</p>
<p>CCNY - Great school for CS and ABET credited. Upon graduation I will be completely debt free. Absolutely non- existent social life. Will have to commute 1 hour back and forth everyday between home and the college.</p>
<p>Stony Brook. Also great CS school. It's considered the best CS SUNY school. I will graduate with $40-50k debt after all four years. Will live on campus and in a dorm.</p>
<p>Originally I was considering CCNY because the debt free aspect is extremely appealing. On top of that, for computer science, name of school or even GPA doesn't really matter its all about what you can actually do and your internship. So graduating from both school should net me pretty much similar jobs.</p>
<p>However I am an extremely shy and introverted person and this is something I desperately want to fix. I made some progress in high school but I feel like CCNY would just act as an extenuation of High School. If I went to CCNY i would have to live at home with my parents (which sucks), would lose a lot of social footing/progress, and would generally be unhappy.</p>
<p>If I went to SUNY happiness wouldn't be guaranteed obviously but I would stop being so sheltered by my parents and would be able to finally have some freedom and live like an actually person. I feel like a dorm life would really help me get out of introverted shell and help me work on my social skills.</p>
<p>Now I am leaning more towards SUNY as I feel this college experience really is worth the $40-50k in debt as it will completely shape me as a person and my future. Social skills are very important in life and if I go to CUNY I feel like I would regress and become even more shy and secluded. Also a lot of people graduate with 200k in debt so 40k isn't that bad. Plus I don't want to be stingy and miss out on a once in a lifetime experience because I was stingy with money.</p>
<p>so</p>
<p>TL;DR Is it worth it to graduate with 40k in debt as opposed to being debt free in order to gain the "college experience"</p>
<p>no cost is everything, so cuny</p>
<p>I currently commute 30 minutes to school (up to an hour when there’s traffic) and I personally hate it. Like you said, there is no growing as a person, or “college experience”. If you believe you can handle having the freedom while maintaining your grades, I’d suggest Stony Brook. I know 40k-50k may seem like a lot, but 10 years down the road I personally believe you’ll be in the same place as if you graduated with no debt.</p>
<p>Hey, I debated between ccny and stony and I have some of the same qualities of you, but I’m going to ask you a question my parents also asked me, why would you go to a college for free? In the long run it might not be right, so I decided to go to stony</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>A word from a parent here. It is hard to grasp the loan payment hardship. You say 40K is not so bad. You can go on any student loan calculator and see what you will be paying. I just did a rough estimate using 50K loan, 6.8% interest rate, 120 months repayment term and found that you will be paying $575 a month . You interest will be over 19K and the minimum salary to handle these payments is 86K (not sure if it took into account the high cost of living in NYC). Do you think you will get this salary at entry level? You can play with your numbers and see what you get. Maybe you are talikng about subsidized loans, then it is not so high. It may come to choosing between living with your parents now or living with your parents after college when payments are due. I would choose SBU if not for the borrowing though.</p>
<p>I think the federal student loan rate is 3.86%.</p>
<p>You have a choice of repayment plans. The chart below provides details about repayment plans and your estimated repayment information under each of the different plans. Your loan servicer will determine your eligibility for the repayment plans.</p>
<p>Standard*
120 months
$504 /month
$60,462 total
click to expand contents
Graduated*
120 months
$282 - $845 /month
$63,049 total
click to expand contents
Extended Fixed
300 months
$261 /month
$78,350 total
click to expand contents
Extended Graduated
300 months
$163 - $473 /month
$85,672 total
click to expand contents
Pay As You Earn**
240 months
$0 /month
$0 total
click to expand contents
Income-Based Repayment (IBR)**
300 months
$0 /month
$0 total
click to expand contents
Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR)**
300 months
$0 /month
$0 total
click to expand contents
- For Direct Consolidation Loans, the repayment period under this plan varies </p>
<p>I hoped you picked the CUNY. You can’t go out and have fun if all your money is tied up in paying for school. My niece attended NYS schools (cc + SUNY), but never lived on campus or at home while she was in college. She got a job and shared an apartment with other college kids. Not that they were ever at home. They lived in a college town and were very social. Because they didn’t have large debt, she and a couple of her roommates were able to afford a trip to Europe the summer after graduation. </p>
<p>Being introverted and being shy are two separate things. Introverts get their energy from being alone; extroverts from being in large groups. Shyness is something you grow out of with age and experience. A true introvert might find a large SUNY draining unless s/he made time to recharge. It’s exciting to be away from home and try new things. I’d try to avoid taking on a large amount of debt to do it.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if the Stony Brook experience is worth being 45k in debt. I like SBU, but not that much. If it were Stanford or an Ivy, sure. In fact, the only reason I considered SBU in the first place was because it was ridiculously cheap compared to my other options.</p>
<p>Well I already committed to stony brook and paid my deposit but I feel like I made the right choice
Stony brook is 20k a year
i get 17k of financial aid per year
5.5k of that is loans
that amasses to 22k debt after 4 years
starting salary for software developer in new york is 80-90k a year.
I feel like i could pay the loan of in 2-3 years. </p>
<p>They’re both great schools, either way I believe you’ll make good money graduating from either program. So if you really want to go away, and I believe Stony Brook is slightly better than CCNY, I don’t think you’ll have any problems paying back the loans.</p>
<p>I am aware of the appeal of being debt free, but as someone who chose to stay home it is the worst, most miserable way to do college. Instead of coming home and having stories to share with your friends from high school, you sit there jealous wishing you had gone off. My parents are great people and I get along with them fine, but I promise you will never regret choosing to go away over staying home, but the chance you will regret staying home is really high. To put this into perspective, I would rather pay for everything completely on my own and go away than stay home and have everything paid for(and yes I do know how much I would spend and how long it would take to pay off).</p>