Macaulay, for anyone that doesn’t know, is an honors program in the City University of New York system. Students receive full tuition scholarships, new macs, and $7,500 stipends for studying abroad. I currently live 20 minutes away from the campus I got into.
Simply put, one school gave me no money whatsoever while the other completely covers tuition. I prefer Northeastern because I’d have the opportunity to get away from home and a lifestyle that I dislike. I’m not sure if Northeastern is worth taking out loans. Also of note, I’d be able to swim at CSI on their varsity team, whereas I’d have to swim on Northeastern’s club team. Do the benefits of going away and going to my dream school outweigh the benefits of graduating debt-free? Is being a collegiate student-athlete worth it? I’d love some input before I have to deposit.
Go to Macaulay. You will get money for a semester abroad, a computer and I believe that there are dorms. I work with a young man who went to CSI and he is most likely going to wind up as the head of the claims department at the insurance company where we work when the people who are my age retire. He tells me that getting out of college without debt was the best gift he could give himself.
By the way, Macaulay has an excellent reputation and you should be rightfully proud for having been accepted to it.
Northeastern student who loves it here: Go Macaulay. It sounds like you could be very happy and successful there while being debt free. That difference is too huge to ignore.
@PengsPhils I’m re-visiting on Saturday and if I’m not completely in love, I see myself going with the debt-free option. My most significant con for Macaulay is that it’s too close to home. I don’t want to commute and the dorms are too sketchy for comfort. It’s also an extremely small program and I worry about the social aspect. In the end, it would be around 80-90k worth of loans for all 4/5 years. I’d be in a STEM field and most people from my field have decent starting salaries; I figure that I wouldn’t be completely crippled by them. I’d be willing to deal with the loans if I feel like I’d be happier there. As one of my classmates (who is attending Georgetown in the fall) has said, the loans are worth it if it’s what you truly want.