I’m 18 and planning to major in Finance/Business, and I have been accepted to Bentley University and University of Miami. Both expensive, of which I will be paying for 60% with loans and live on campus. Any suggestions on which would be a better pick?? Based on reputation, contacts, education, etc.
Or any good sources to get a good comparison in this context. Thanks! Could use any insight.
It sounds like you really can’t afford either.
Both Bentley and University of Miami’s total cost of attendance is $62K per year. If you have to pay for 60% of it with loans, that’s nearly $150K over four years. First of all, domestic students can only borrow $5,500 in their freshman year up to $6,500 in their senior year from the federal government. Anything over that has to be co-signed by a creditworthy borrower. And second of all, that’s far too much to borrow. You won’t be able to repay it as a brand new college grad - even a new BA in business can’t expect to make more than $60-70K in total comp, and even only that much if they are really lucky and make it to a top Wall Street job.
Did you get accepted anywhere else? What does the financial aid look like at other schools?
Other option was San Diego University. That’s it. The loans would be co-signed with my father. So basically these are my only options. I plan to get into investing, trading and already do some entrepreneur ventures. Unfortunately, across the board… about $120-$150K of loans is what I’m looking at. FAFSA gave me $10K grants and about $10K Aid loans. So at this point it’s really between Bentley and Miami, and really just trying to get some insight into both as options.
A friend of one of my kids racked up $230K in student loans at University of Miami. The student was an engineering major and the only job offer he received was for <$50K/year (anticipated much higher salary upon graduation). It took the student close to 5-years to get the undergraduate degree in one of the “low demand” engineering field. I’m at a lost as to how a student could amass such a large student loan debt. It is not clear to me how he can pay back this debt on such a low salary.
OP, do you really want to be in a similar position as this UM grad? You should really look at other alternatives before committing to either university. BTW, is *60% with co-signed private student loans * AND federal subsidized/unsubsidized student loans?
I’m basically receiving $100K from my parents total for 4 years, and Bentley is approx $250K. The 60% ($150K) would be private co-signed student loans with my father. The FAFSA loans they’re giving me access to is minimal $5-10K.
I’m leaning towards Bentley but I just don’t know enough about either to feel good about the decision and the price tag both come with. Which is why I’m looking to get more info for both schools about the reputation, contacts, etc.
Are you talking about San Diego State University, or University of San Diego? SDSU is a great university and a really good choice for a CA resident. USD is a good school too, especially if it’s less expensive/more affordable.
If your dad can afford $100K across four years, that’s $25K per year. Most states have a public university where the total cost of attendance for state residents is less than $30K a year; if your dad is willing to kick in $25K and you take out federal loans and maybe work a bit or get some work-study, you can afford a great public university in your state. Another option is to go to community college for a year or two, and then transfer into your state’s public university for the last 2-3 years. What state do you live in, OP?
Or you can take a gap year and try again with some universities that might give you some financial aid.
I don’t think you’re understanding the issue here, though - you won’t be able to repay those loans. It doesn’t matter what kind of investing and trading you get into; it’s exceedingly unlikely that a brand new college grad will make the kind of $$$ necessary to repay $150K of loans. And even successful entrepreneurial ventures take years to make money if they ever do. Do you know that most Silicon Valley startups crash and burn within a few years? Only some are moderately successful, and only a few turn into the Facebook, Snapchats and Ubers of the world.
Private loans do not have the stopgaps that public loans do - there’s no loan forgivenness, no automatic forbearance or deferment, little relief. When you are unable to repay - because if you borrow $150K for school, that’s what’s going to happen - you will ruin both your father’s credit and your own. You’ll be unable to live independently. You won’t be able to buy a house or a car or rent your own apartment. If you do a search you’ll find lots of stories of students who borrowed a lot of money to go to expensive schools such as these and ended up in a bad place financially later.
$230K over 5 years is about $46K per year. UMiami’s cost of attendance is about $63K a year, so I can see how he amassed those loans - maybe he got a grant for $17K or maybe his parents could only pay $17K and he financed the rest, thinking he was going to make the big bucks as an engineer and could pay it back. Except that he ended up spending 5 years in school.
Even well-paid engineers only make about $50-65K on average coming out of school with their bachelors degree - college students hear about the ridiculous salaries paid to software developers at Google and Microsoft et al., but only a very small fraction of engineering and CS majors get hired there! And even then they still don’t make enough money to repay $150K in debt, let alone $230K. (Google pays its software developers about $128K on average base salary, which is still less than that debt, and they are one of the highest-paying companies in the world.
Go gap or community college to knock out pre requisites so you can apply to schools that are a better fit for you.
Do the math on how much your income needs to be just to carry those loans.