<p>Basically if you had the option to go to a good school you really hated everything about and could graduate debt-free, or go to a good school that you really loved everything about and had to graduate with debt, which one would be the better option to pick? How much does graduating with debt really hurt you in life?</p>
<p>How much debt are we talking? 5k? 10? 20? 30? 40? 60?</p>
<ol>
<li>How much?</li>
<li>What major?</li>
<li>What after the major (workforce, grad school, professional school)?</li>
</ol>
<p>Well $10,000 per year but I’d study abroad for one year (I don’t think I’d have debt that year because I’d pay directly to the university abroad), so that’s only 3 years.</p>
<p>I want to double major in like Economics and maybe Philosophy or English, and then go to law school.</p>
<p>If you’re going to law school minimize debt. You want to save your borrowing power for then.</p>
<p>$30k would make me hesitate in any case unless I knew I’d have a high starting salary out of school, and $40k is just right out. It’s just another set of stresses on you. Having to worry about another expense, having to worry about getting a good enough job to pay it off comfortably.</p>
<p>I think that’s too much debt. It’s your call of course. Haavain is right about not piling debt upon debt when you’ll also have to borrow --probably big bucks-- for law school. Not to mention there are legions of unemployed and underemployed recent law schools grads (most of them also drowning in debt.)</p>
<p>Well $10,000 per year but I’d study abroad for one year (I don’t think I’d have debt that year because I’d pay directly to the university abroad), so that’s only 3 years.</p>
<p>I don’t think so… with study abroad, you pay your current college’s rates. If the “study abroad” school is cheaper, you don’t get a discount. Others can correct me if I’m wrong…but it’s not like you’d be transferring from your regular college to the overseas college, and then transferring back. You’re enrolled the whole time at your regular college.</p>
<p>BTW…study abroad semesters/years are usually MORE expensive…not less expensive.</p>
<p>Either way…you’ll need about $150k+ for law school, so you’d run out of borrowing power for law school, if you borrowed that much for undergrad, too. The Stafford max for undergrad + law school is (right now) $138,500.</p>