<p>Midd is my first choice, far and away. Midd is the reason I've done so much work in high school. Midd fits me perfectly. My closest friend is going to Midd. You get the picture.</p>
<p>Problem: Midd has not seen fit to float me any grant aid. If my package (or lack thereof) persists, then I'm looking at 30K of debt per annum. Note that we may see a significant revision upon my dad's retirement -- but then again, we may not.</p>
<p>I have tried to no avail to get my offer reconsidered. Basically I have a much better grant from Carleton but it hasn't changed any minds in VT. Right now I'm trying to get the financial aid crew to run the numbers on some kind of post-retirement deferred entry scenario. Nothing yet but I'm sure they are very busy at the moment.</p>
<p>Here's my question: What sort of debt load is manageable if I'm angling for a career in law or medicine? I do have cheaper schools than Midd on the list but I'm unwilling to abandon the dream quite yet.</p>
<p>As fodder for discussion I have two opposing views. One comes from my mother and the other comes from a friend's mother.</p>
<p>View 1: Dave -- you are completely insane. There is no reason to rack up this kind of debt for an undergraduate degree. You will have all kinds of options in graduate school anyway.</p>
<p>View 2: You want to go to Middlebury? Then go! You won't be able to live with yourself if you don't. Debt is debt -- it makes no difference if you're borrowing to start a car wash or borrowing to become a doctor.</p>
<p>So there you have it. Any comments would be dearly appreciated.</p>
<p>That’s a huge debt upon graduation. Midd would have picked you because you were well rounded and smart and fit a niche. Carleton is another great school and they picked you for the same reason. I don’t wish a mortgage size debt upon graduation for anyone and I’m a Midd grad. I side with your mother, you will make your undergraduate experience special wherever you go</p>
<p>You’ll forget about Middlebury when you settle in at Carleton or one of your other choices. In these uncertain times, it does not make any sense to saddle yourself with that kind of debt . .</p>
<p>Debt vs. another wonderful school with minimal or no debt…the no debt/minimal debt option is always the better choice - you never know how the economy will recover or when, your own personal choices are in your control, however, and starting off grad school with alot of debt is just not the optimal choice, no matter how much you like Middlebury - you need to weigh and look for the benefits of your other choices vs. accruing so much debt before you even venture off into the world…</p>
<p>I think Midd vs an equally enriching and challenging school (like Carleton) is a lot different scenario than Midd vs a school that is cheaper but has less opportunities. When I visited schools, Carleton and Midd were my top two immediately because they both had a special vibe about them. Debt is definitely worth it if it is the only way to get the opportunities you need (ie. I do not go for the graduate school>>>undergraduate experience theory) but when you have an outstanding alternative, I don’t know… that is a toughie.</p>
<p>Midd is by far my top choice though and I’m trying to get off the waitlist so I do understand how wonderful the school is. But my financial need is sky high so even considering that kind of debt for me is laughable.</p>
<p>However, you have every right to use the opportunities and advantages you have at hand. I’m sick of people not understanding why I love schools in the States, thinking I should just settle for Hometown U…so I can sympathize with the people thinking you are crazy thing…you should trust yourself and do what you need to do</p>
<p>Dave, this is a no-brainer. Go to Carleton. </p>
<p>Try this thought-experiment on for size. If you had a $120,000 pile of cash in front of you, and the opportunity to spend it on Middlebury, or to bank it while going to Carleton, what would you do?</p>
<p>I have trouble understanding how Midd and Carleton could possibly differ by $120,000 of value. I’m not an expert on either of those two colleges, but they look awfully similar from the outside. </p>
<p>Here’s another thought experiment for you: if some person rounded up the first 50 Carleton students they met on campus, and the first 50 Midd students they met, and placed them (minus all identifying symbols) in separate anonymous spaces, would you be able to figure out which group is which?</p>
<p>Last of all, you would probably succeed in transferring to Midd after a year at Carleton, if you still felt so strongly about it in a year.</p>
<p>I want to discuss your friends view that borrowing for college is like borrowing for starting a car wash. Yes, if you succeed in becoming a doctor, you can use future earnings to pay back the loans, just as you can use future earnings to pay back for the car wash. But what happens in each situation if you fail, or whatever reason?
Well in the car wash, you have the land and the machinery to sell to settle some of the debt, and if you’re structured correctly, you can file bankruptcy or the investors will share in the loss. Life will be hard until you get back on your feet, seven years tops for filing bankruptcy.
If you drop out of school, or don’t make it to medical school, that debt is all yours until every last penny is paid back. You will be paying a chunk of your now lesser future income for the debt for the next 10-20 years.
Go to Carleton. Don’t start your life with that much debt hanging over your head. Your parents will sleep better, you’ll have more spending cash, and more time for studying and fun.</p>
<p>I think both are great schools. And frankly, beyond the similar education, I am going to go out on a limb and say the weather is about the same as well. Both are about 45 min to an hour away from a fabulous city and while I don’t know much about Burlington, Minneapolis/St Paul is seriously right up there with Chicago and Boston in terms of opportunities for sports, arts, etc. GREAT hip parts of town that many students enjoy. Also, Carlton has St Olaf right next door so you get the extra bang for the buck and somewhat like Amherst, you’ll enjoy the more intelligent reputation.</p>
<p>I love Midd and S will be attending in the fall, but I’d have no issue if he wanted to attend carlton, but he just wanted to go east.</p>
<p>Proud Midd grad here. Take the Carleton offer. The schools are just too similar to justify undergraduate debt. The fact that you will also need to take on even more debt for law or medical school makes this even more compelling. Go to Carleton and don’t look back.</p>
<p>Carleton is a great school in a great little town near a great metropolitan area. Midd may be special, but it’s not $120K worth of special, particularly $120K that you don’t have. Don’t think of Midd as the reason you worked hard in high school. You would not have gotten into Carleton without the same effort. </p>
<p>Not all lawyers and doctors make a gazillion dollars. Even those who attend top professional schools may find themselves drawn to public service, rather than to jobs where they will make big bucks. If that might be you, it’s a lot harder to follow your heart with that $120K ON TOP of what you will borrow for grad school. </p>
<p>I hope we have convinced you to attend Carleton. If we have, I predict that by this time next year you will wonder why on earth you had to think twice!</p>
<p>I agree with EVERYTHING that has been said, even though I am going to Middlebury next year! </p>
<p>If I were in your shoes, I would choose Carleton, without ever looking back. The amount of money v. your emotional conception of schools (at the age of 18 nonetheless) is not great enough for you to choose Midd over Carleton. </p>
<p>Go to Minnesota, have a great time, and learn to live with your decisions:]</p>
<p>Best of luck and, keep in mind, you can always come to Midd for summer language school!</p>
<p>MIDD is such a great school, of which I am very fond of, but so is Carleton from those I have talked to.</p>
<p>Being saddled with DEBT within current history is the equivalent of ancient slavery.</p>
<p>If you have a trust fund, fine, if not, well, you know what that means.</p>
<p>So what do you want to do?</p>
<p>Do what you think is the right thing to do for yourself and those concerned with your education.</p>
<p>As a side note, in another year or two, if the economy continues as it appears to be demonstrating, funding in the form of financial aid is going to be slimmer from what I have been reading.</p>
<p>I’m not exactly sure if Mom 2 knew what kind of debt I was looking at, to be honest.</p>
<p>And all of this sounds reasonable, even if it is a bit hard to swallow. I do like Carleton rather a lot.</p>
<p>Note that Carleton would still leave me with anywhere from 10K to 30K of debt – is that within reason?</p>
<p>My last option is the University of Oklahoma, about which I am not in the least enthused. It would be still cheaper though, since I am a National Merit Finalist.</p>
<p>While I think the calculation of aid is something to consider between both colleges, for some folk the difference of $195 between the two school’s tuition and fee structure isn’t much in the way of discerning which one is more that kind of special.</p>
<p>Dave - not to make things any more confusing for you, but, just something to consider: during a period of hyper-inflation which would be just kicking in by the time you graduate, there’s a good chance you’d be paying a negative interest rate on your $120,000 debt. In other words, $120,000 (in 2013 dollars) won’t actually be worth $120,000 by the time you pay it all back. Hyper-inflationary economic cycles are the best time to be in debt.</p>
<p>john wesley, Advising OP that taking huge college loans based on the possibility of hyperinflation is not sound advice, in my opinion. If you want to buy a condo in Florida and hope for hyperinflation, go for it! But we could conceivably experience DEFLATION, too. Or maybe you were just being sarcastic? :)</p>
<p>And as to OP’s question, is $10K-30K of debt reasonable, if I were you, I’d go to an online amortization calculator and see what the monthly payment on your debt will be when you get out of school and then decide. In order to do that you will need to know the interest rate, as well as when interest starts accruing and how many years you will have to pay it back. </p>
<p>If my son could have attended Carleton for $30K more than a state school, we would have been all over that. Definitely would have been worth it to us!</p>
<p>This is a very interesting thread because I am going through a similar situation. I have narrowed my choices down to three (not counting wait-lists). Middlebury College, DePauw University, and IUPUI. At Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, I will go to school for free. NO strings attached. At DePauw, I will be paying 21k a year and still come out debt free. At Middlebury, (I also was not given any financial packages and found out today that it is virtually impossible to get that decision reversed for 09-010 year) I will be paying 50k. So, I have to decide between free, 80k, and 200k. At IUPUI I will get 2 or three majors (polysci, history, and philanthropy). At DePauw, I will be attending the school that my other brother went to and now works at. At Midd, I will be at a fantastic school very far from home with 120k of debt.</p>
<p>noggin291, What made it so easy to answer AkDave’s question was that Middlebury and Carleton are very similar schools. </p>
<p>Many students end up with a range of schools bearing a range of price tags and have to balance quality of education and quality of life for four years against cost, whether that cost be long-term debt or mom & dad selling the '66 Mustang convertible (that you always hoped they’d give to you as a graduation present). </p>
<p>Yours may be a tougher question, since you are presented with a very wide range of price tags and, I think, pretty different schools to choose from. I would vote against ANYBODY borrowing $200K for undergraduate, even if it is to attend a great school like Middlebury. </p>
<p>Other things to consider in making your choice: Will you get through the public school in four years? If you don’t, you may pay tuition for your fifth year, in addition to losing a years’ worth of earnings. Are you headed for grad school? Many people would argue that you should save the debt for grad school–that no one cares where you got your undergraduate degree. I’m sure others can add other things for you to consider. </p>