My heart says D.C. but my parents says USF. I believe it would be a smarter decision for me to attend American University for the limitless opportunities AU and D.C. would offer. I embrace change and attending AU will certainly deviate from the norm. USF is close to home, but I feel that I wont be challenged here. I would have to take out a 10000 loan each year for AU. But I see this as an investment so I would not mind taking out a student loan. I also have 63 credits transferring to AU as a freshman(I was in an early college in FL where I became a full time college student in 11th grade; AU takes all of the credits) so I will only need approximately 60 more credits(2-3 years) to graduate with my BA degree. If you were in my position which would you pick?
Well, you cannot borrow $10,000 a year. Your loans are limited to $5,500 your first year, $6,500 your second year, and $7,500 your junior and senior years. If you have to borrow to make up the rest, then you would have to borrow private loans from a bank that your parents would have to co-sign. If your parents are unwilling to co-sign for the additional loans, you’d have to find another way to make up the additional $2,500 to $4,500 each year. (That’s not a whole lot - you might be able to make that up with work-study or with summer earnings, but you’d have to find a way to come up with $4,500 between now and August/September.)
Your debt will be pretty low if you transferred 63 credits to American U; if you only need 60 more credits, you can earn that in 2 years. Let’s even say that you spend 3 more years there…even if you found a way to borrow the entire extra cost, that’s only $30,000. (It’s only be $25,000 if you went for 2.5 years.) It’d be even less if you paid for some of that out of your summer earnings. Personally, I would say that American is worth the extra $30,000.
However, which one I would pick is irrelevant - you have to talk to your parents. Are they willing to help you secure the additional $4,500 that you need to go to American? Are they supportive of your choice either way and are just pushing you to pick USF, or are they telling you that they will only support you if you go to USF?
What do you want to major in? If the sciences, then USF. If social sciences/humanities, then AU - especially for political science, this is a case where “cheaper” would not be “good value”.
If the $10,000 are the total of federal loans + money you need to find, you wouldn’t need to borrow all that: find a part time job now (your school work, last term of senior year, should be lighter, and you can afford a few Bs, even one C or two), save the money, work in the summer, and ask for work study on campus (or expect to work about 10 hours a week) and you should be okay for AU.
If the $10,000 in addition to federal loans and work study, then I’m not sure it’s doable.