<p>I've spent over 2 years in Devry online getting my bachelors for web/graphic design. I was suddenly informed that my loans are drying up and I can only attend another semester and a half. With tuition being 605 a credit hour (total tuition is now 81k and rises 10k every year: it was 61k when I enrolled), I have to stop taking my degree and self teach myself and give up that degree. I worked so hard, getting A's and B's in classes. I'm so down. No one told me you only get a certain amount. :( </p>
<p>How can a person start petitioning the government to raise that maximum when it ends up kicking people out of school? I've been unemployed for almost 2 years now with zero hope of finding a job so obviously I can't afford the 2400 ish per class out of pocket and I refuse to go private loans. As it stands, I can get income based repayment AND defer for quite a few years and do that other thing where they put a hold on repayment. Still. I have to pay all that back basically for doing a 2.5 year tour of devry's online classrooms. Zero degree. Unless I can pay all that back - but with interest rates, by the time I get to 30 years, it'll be well over 200k. So I've accepted i'll NEVER pay that back - but I will do the monthly payments to avoid going into default. </p>
<p>It's very depressing. I could have just foregone school all together if I had known this stuff doesn't cover 100%. If I would have KNOWN, there would have been no issues. I would not have enrolled period and would have been 'satisfied' working min wage for life. Now I get to pay that crud back and still be min wage for life :(</p>
<p>Edit to add: I'm halfway through my bachelors.</p>
<p>Sarra, with all due respect, who did you expect to tell you? It is the responsibility of students and their families TO READ UP on things when borrowing money, matriculating to a school, etc. It is unfortunate in this case you did not have better advice, but no one will ever have your back LIKE YOU CAN, so in the future, take care in researching.</p>
<p>That debt will not go away, even in bankruptcy, so the better plan is to aggressively attack it until you have it paid down – that way you won’t loose so much to interest (read Dave Ramsay for good financial advice about debt!)</p>
<p>Secondly-- why on earth are you paying that kind of money for online web/graphic design at a for-profit institution? I strongly suggest that you go to work on getting those loans paid down and take part-time courses at a reputable local university or cc while working. </p>
<p>If you’re a good designer, and fast, it’s quite likely you can continue to develop your skills on your own and garner more than minimum wage! IME you don’t need Devry to do this. I happen to know something about web development as I co-own a design/ development company There are lots of folks like me who will take on talented young individuals with strong portfolios and the right combo of skills. Devry would not mean anything to me at all, frankly. Now, we are big fans of full development/encoding, so a CS degree or an Art &Design degree from a reputable non-profit school holds more appeal for us. But one of our best UI designers was pretty much just born that way, self-taught, and non-pedigreed His work is stellar.</p>
<p>Someone who could be trusted to copyedit the content, however, would be a boon ;)</p>
<p>So you’re not at the dead end you think you are. Get out there and show folks what you can do an some savvy soul will pick you up. Then mow down that debt and put the mistake behind you!</p>
<p>I hope this will serve as a cautionary tale to others not to get in a situation with such high tuition/high loans, and to thoroughly research options available.</p>
<p>I’m so sorry you are in this situation. It sounds awful. You were poorly advised. The reason they cut you off is because that kind of tuition is, frankly, highway robbery–so you hit the ceiling faster than you would’ve if going a lower-cost route (ie, community college for 2 years, state U for 2 years in my area would result in about $35,000 for the whole 4 years, possibly less for students with excellent grades/scores or financial need). And honestly, you would NOT want another 50k or 100k of loans on top of what you have. I just wish they’d advised you better or you found better options. I’m sure they sold you on the school and left out the huge cost.</p>
<p>But while a degree is often a job requirement, you don’t HAVE to have a degree to work in design/web work, if you have the skills. Try to get freelance work to build a portfolio. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>Thank you for the encouragement. I appreciate it. I’ve been asking friends for help in training so I can do this on my own. I found a site called designcrowd where they’ll pay you between 200 and 1000 for designs for websites and so on. It would be good for my portfolio etc. It’s a start at least, though I’ve read online pros and cons of it _ cons being that they pay little for the work compared to actual design places and that you have to hope they will choose your work to use and therefore pay you. </p>
<p>In two years, I have learned a little about cs4’s (which I have) dream weaver, but do not know how to actually code or get the site live outside of my own computer running it. The first two years were spent on intro classes as they have it set up. I chose devry because out of all the online schools, it seemed the best. Hindsight, heh. Hindsight. </p>
<p>I would have done a trade school instead if I had known what those were earlier than 4 months ago.</p>
<p>Institutions like Devry exist to suck up government money, not to educate students. It’s long past time for the feds to turn off the spigot to entities that don’t produce a minimum number of employable graduates. One of the worthy things you can do now is to warn away others from attending for-profit schools. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>*total tuition is now 81k and rises 10k every year: it was 61k when I enrolled), *</p>
<p>Absolutely horrible!!</p>
<p>Who the hecks borrows that much money to attend DeVry (or any other school for that matter)???</p>
<p>Do not attend that school for ONE MORE DAY.</p>
<p>go to your local state school for a FRACTION of the cost. However, don’t be surprised if your local state school won’t recognize any of the credits from DeVry…the school is probably not properly accredited by the institutions that other univs respect.</p>
<p>The reason that the feds aren’t going to raise the loan limits is because…guess what? Even with a degree from DeVry, you couldn’t earn enough to pay back that much debt. </p>
<p>Even if you graduated RIGHT NOW, you have too much debt. In another thread, you say that you have $57k in debt. That alone is WAAAAAYYYYYY TOOOOO MUCH debt. </p>
<p>It looks like you were planning on graduating with over $100k in debt…that’s just nuts. Do you have any idea how that would ruin your life? As a newish grad, you wouldn’t earn enough as a web/graphic designer to make the payments. You’d be lucky to earn $50k your first year out of college. That’s not enough to support yourself AND to make those huge debt payments. </p>
<p>I can’t imagine who was advising you, but my goodness, you’ve been set up for disaster. </p>
<p>Find out if ANY of your credits will be tranferable to a CC or local state school. Get a JOB, work a lot of hours, and go to school at your local state school or CC while you earn a REAL degree without accumulating more senseless debt.</p>
There are lots of folks like me who will take on talented young individuals with strong portfolios and the right combo of skills. Devry would not mean anything to me at all, frankly. Now, we are big fans of full development/encoding, so a CS degree or an Art &Design degree from a reputable non-profit school holds more appeal for us. But one of our best UI designers was pretty much just born that way, self-taught, and non-pedigreed 
I appreciate it. I’ve been asking friends for help in training so I can do this on my own. I found a site called designcrowd where they’ll pay you between 200 and 1000 for designs for websites and so on. It would be good for my portfolio etc. It’s a start at least, though I’ve read online pros and cons of it _ cons being that they pay little for the work compared to actual design places and that you have to hope they will choose your work to use and therefore pay you. </p>