Dream School vs. No Debt

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
1

<p>I know it's pretty much the best problem I could ever have, but I've been accepted to Caltech, MIT, and Georgia Tech. GT offered me stuff that means it's basically free. MIT put my EFC well over the cost of attendance, so I'll go ahead and assume I'm getting nothing from them. I don't like them as much as Caltech anywho. Caltech already told me I'm getting no financial aid. My parents can only afford a year at Caltech. I'm planning to major in physics. </p>

<p>All this to say: Do I go to Caltech, the school I've dreamt of since freshman year, and deal with ~150,000 in loans, or go to Georgia Tech? I've been freaking out over the decision for months, and made zero headway.</p>

2

<p>My son faced a similar dilemma last year and took almost until the May 1 deadline to decide. He had the free ride to a very good state school or Caltech. We at least got some financial aid from Caltech, but will wind up with a huge debt load as well, which is very worrisome in the current economy. What ultimately decided it for him was that he did not want to spend the rest of his life wondering what could have been if he had gone to Caltech. I'm hoping we don't all spend the rest of our lives trying to pay for it. He is very happy at Caltech and feels he made the right choice. Time will tell. It is not an easy choice to make and I hope you don't agonize over it as much as he did. It is a huge relief once the choice has been made. Good luck.</p>

3

<p>Why don't you investigate where the GT physics students go to graduate school or what they do following graduation. If students go on to top graduate schools (MIT, Caltech, etc.) then not having debt might be a good thing. D was accepted to Caltech last year, decided not to go after the financial aid office was very unfriendly after I had become unemployed. Top LAC she is now attending helped tremendously with financial aid. She is so happy she made the decision, given today's economic climate.</p>

4

<p>Investigating the grad schools is certainly a good idea, but honestly, I'm interested as much or more than anything as to what school will make me happiest, will let me grow the most, both personally and academically. Being in an environment all through high school where I could, with as little (or as much) effort as I chose, be the top in most things math/science was just not personally productive. If this were a purely monetary decision, I would have signed up with GT a while ago. I think the real question for me is: would I gain more happiness while at Caltech (compared to GT) than I would lose paying off the loans?</p>

<p>A bit of a side note, but I believe I've heard grad school in research science is pretty much free as long as you're willing to TA/work in someone's lab. Is this true or am I remembering wrong?</p>

5

<p>I don't know that coming to Caltech causes a huge increase in happiness for most people. The reason why people come here is to challenge themselves academically. It's great if they can be happy in the process, but I think at times it's harder here to do that than at most places. So I wouldn't approach this decision as "Do I get to be happy or do I get to be debt free?" The biggest element in the happiness equation is you, not where you go to school.</p>

<p>You need to talk to your parents about what they think / are willing to do. You are not going to be able to get 150K in loans without them signing on, and they might not be comfortable doing that--especially if you want to get a PhD straight out of college, which means you can't even start paying back your debt until eight years or so after you've started racking it up.</p>

<p>Grad school is research science is "pretty much free" if you're doing a PhD, yes. Not usually if you're getting a master's.</p>

6

<p>Parents are OK with the loans, though I would be the one to personally pay them off.
Anyone else have thoughts on what lizardfire said about happiness? I suppose what I meant about happiness was that all my closest friends have always been the smartest people I know, which makes me think I'd like the people much better at Caltech ==> be happier.
Pardon my ignorance, but if I go for a Ph.D., do I have to first go for a masters?</p>

7

<p>If you go for a PhD, you will usually get a masters degree on the way. In general however, what you said applies as long as your masters is not a terminal masters degree ie, as long as you are going straight on to your PhD.<br>
Personally, I'm only really happy when I'm challenged, and I chose Caltech because I was certain to be challenged here. And the people here are really awesome to be around, but I'm sure we aren't the only school where that's true.</p>

8

<p>You might want to run that $150,000 through a financial aid calculator to see what kind of repayment schedule you'd have.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Loan Balance: $150,000.00
Adjusted Loan Balance: $154,639.18
Loan Interest Rate: 6.80%
Loan Fees: 3.00%
Loan Term: 10 years
Minimum Payment: $50.00</p>

<p>Monthly Loan Payment: $1,779.59
Number of Payments: 120</p>

<p>Cumulative Payments: $213,551.27
Total Interest Paid: $63,551.27</p>

<p>It is estimated that you will need an annual salary of at least $213,550.80 to be able to afford to repay this loan. This estimate assumes that 10% of your gross monthly income will be devoted to repaying your student loans. This corresponds to a debt-to-income ratio of 0.7. If you use 15% of your gross monthly income to repay the loan, you will need an annual salary of only $142,367.20, but you may experience some financial difficulty.This corresponds to a debt-to-income ratio of 1.1. </p>

<p>FinAid</a> | Calculators | Loan Calculator

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I can't imagine any school being worth $150k. Also, while you will be paid as a grad student, you'll be making roughly $10 an hour, and I'm quite sure that you won't be getting all of those loans federally subsidized. What does that mean? You'll have to stay paying back ~$100,000 of those loans while you're still in grad school. Right now as a grad at Caltech, I'm taking home around $1700 a month. Rent is around $750 after utilities and internet (and will be going up 3-6% next year). Then there's car payments, insurance, cell phone, and food costs. I cook most of my own meals, and get a lot of lunches from free events on campus, but I still spend around $6/day on food. So I've got around $600-$700 of "discretionary" income a month (I put about half away because Caltech doesn't withhold all of my taxes, so I owe the IRS a bit now for taxes). If you're paying off a $100,000 loan at the same time, you've got around a $1000 monthly bill alone right there.</p>

<p>So let's say you get your loans put on forbearance while you're in grad school and you only need to pay interest on them. That's still about $600 a month you'll be paying in interest alone. So, when you get out of grad school, you'll still have the whole $150,000 in principal sitting there, and you've already paid $35,000-$40,000 on those loans while still IN SCHOOL. At this point you'll be 26-28 years old. With the massive loans you've got out, forget about even buying a house (or a new car, or etc etc) until those loans are down.</p>

<p>Also, chicks don't dig mountains of college debt.</p>

9

<p>It's not like the people at Georgia Tech are stupid. You'll find plenty of smart people there. Yes, it's not Caltech, but how smart the people are does not correlate to how happy you will be.</p>

<p>I'm agreeing with RacinReaver that 150k of debt is too much for any college.</p>

10

<p>I'm pretty sure my parents have the money to afford Caltech, based on every EFC/actual fin aid offer ever and looking around my home, but know that they are not going to pay for more than a year of Caltech. We have talked about this explicitly and at length. They say that don't "have" more than that. Any chance that if I just flat out explain that to Caltech, they'd reconsider my fin aid offer? It seems unlikely and frankly unfair if they did, as by all appearances we have the money, the parentals just won't put it towards college...</p>

11

<p>Unfortunately, I don't think the financial aid office can do anything in that situation.</p>

12

<p>i would got to georgia tech, do very well, and then go to caltech for graduate school. that way theres no debt but you still get to go to your dream school. plus graduate school is more important.</p>

13

<p>I definitely recognize that the best path financially is GT for undergrad then somewhere "better" for graduate.
Does anyone else have thoughts on the happiness part? On the one hand, at Caltech, I'd certainly be academically challenged, but on the other hand, I could probably find ways to be challenged at GT and could definitely afford to slack off and enjoy non academic parts of life if I chose. How inundated with problem sets would I be at Caltech? Would I find smart people to enjoy at GT? Not that the latter is really a question you can answer, I'm more thinking out loud with it (though I certainly welcome your comments)</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
Does anyone else have thoughts on the happiness part?

[/quote]

If you go to Caltech your parents are going to be out of $50K and you're going to be out of $150K (plus tuition hikes plus interest so it will end up costing you $200K or more). Happy now? :)</p>

<p>Seriously though, you seem to want people to convince you to go to Caltech but no one including Caltech students believe that it's worth the kind of money that it's going to cost you.</p>

15

<p>Re: Happiness at Caltech</p>

<p>This varies vastly depending on the person, what year they are, what major they are, what term it is, what day of the week it is, etc, etc. However, Caltech students are generally overworked and sleep deprived. On the other hand, I've made some great friends here and there are great research opportunities. </p>

<p>If you can manage it, I'd come to Prefrosh weekend and talk to as many techers as you can. Try to visit GT as well. Unless you vastly prefer the Techers you meet to the GT students you meet, I doubt it's worth the money to come to Tech.</p>

16

<p>I'm definitely attending Caltech and MIT's prefrosh weekends. I currently take classes at GT and have friends there, and am going to their prefrosh/scholarship weekend this weekend. Mmmm, data. Let's hope it helps.</p>

17

<p>Pretty much anyone who's parents make more than $200,000 a year is going to be stuck footing the whole bill. (unless you have siblings in college at the same time)</p>

<p>Yeah it really stinks to know you are paying a full ride while so many others are being subsidized or even free rides.</p>

<p>I was in the same boat, great CA schools cheap, 2nd choice great private schools with merit scholarships or dream schools paying the full ride. Because I knew it would be hard to turn down the money I did not even finish submitting the applications after getting into MIT and Caltech early. I chose the dream and my parents and I will have to be pay for it. Will I regret it? Maybe, but I know I would definetly spend my life wondering "what if" if I took the lower choice school. Granted I visited some of these lower choice schools and that is what made them lower choice schools, so I did check them out, it was not a blind decision. </p>

<p>Follow your heart and hopefully your heart and head will agree on what is right for you.</p>

18

<p>Yeah, I'm in the same situation, but there's a huge difference between "your parents and you" paying the full ride and getting stuck with 150k of debt at the end of college. It could screw up his/her life for a very long time (longer than four years).</p>

19

<p>It makes me die more than a bit inside to say it, but I'm afraid you confirm what I suppose I've known for a while. I'll probably go to GT. And I'll probably be happy, and challenged, and even glad of the decision, it just may take some work to get that way. I'd wager that a month or two in, I'll look back at myself now, mock myself for petulant worries, and love GT.</p>

20

<p>Yes, but thinking that you'll have 150K of debt because the total bill is 200K and your parents can only afford 50K is so passive. DM doesn't seem like a passive kid by any means so let's think about how much money could be made by a smart kid during summers and through part-time work. I see sleep-over summer camp counselor jobs that pay $525 a week after room and board. That's 5-6K earned per summer. I'll bet you guys can make $30+/hr tutoring (heck, my middle-schooler made $15/hr teaching chess). At 10 hrs per week thats probably 6-10K during the school year.</p>

<p>So my guess is that the total loans would be less than 100K, for a hard-working kid.</p>