<p>I am from Pennsylvania and am considering many OOS schools. I know my parents are not keen on the additional fees that accompany such a decision, so I've been taking a hard look at scholarships and loans. I would like to ask you all how easy it is to recieve large student loans. After weighing the options, I am fairly confident that taking on debt can be manageable. Here is the worst-case-scenario: I am accepted to UCLA, costing around 50,000 dollars a year. My average middle class family will pay what the school makes them, but no more. They make enough that I will not recieve any signifigant aid relative to the costs, however. My grandparents will cover any miscellaneous costs outside of paying for school. The rest lies upon scholarships and loans. Would it be possible to rack up loans for the rest of the cost?
Thanks!</p>
<p>First of all, as an OOS student, the UC system will probably ask your family to pay full freight of $55K. There is little or no grant or scholarship money available for students from other states.</p>
<p>You can get the federal Direct (Stafford) loans of $5500 just by filing the FAFSA form. Beyond that, to get private student loans you will need a co-signer who will agree to be financially responsible for your loans if you can’t pay them back. </p>
<p>That’s the answer to “how do I get student loans”. Now, to answer a question you haven’t asked – “should I get large student loans” – the answer is an unequivocal NO!</p>
<p>If you finance the bulk of your undergraduate education through loans you will ruin your life. You will be forced to make high payments every month that will deprive you of the ability to do any of the things most young people want to do, such as buy a home, start a family, enjoy the small luxuries of life most middle class people have come to expect. If you want to go to graduate school you will need to borrow more money, and that may not even be possible if you have ruined your credit worthiness.</p>
<p>The consensus around here is that you should not take out more loans than the Stafford limits of around $28K.</p>
<p>Are you a HS junior? If you are a junior, you should include on your college list several schools which you are sure you can pay for and would be happy to attend.</p>
<p>I do have other options on my list, I was asking more for informations sake. Yes, I am interested in graduate school (med school), so I am fully aware that I will have hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt , and there is absolutely no way around that. As such, I suppose the real question I am asking is, am I forced to limit my choices to cheap schools, or may I look beyond simply the cost.
Another question would be if it would be any easier to look into a private school that may cost more than OOS tuition, such as USC or an Ivy.</p>
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<p>How exactly do you intend to “look beyond the cost”? There has to be an element of reality that enters into the decision at some point. You also stated that </p>
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<p>Each school will compute it’s own version of what it thinks your family should pay, and it often will be substantially higher than the FAFSA EFC. It sounds like your family is willing and able to pay for at least some of your college costs, but I’d strongly suggest you look for more affordable options than an OOS school in CA. Many states are facing budget crises, but CA’s is one of the worst and you can probably expect significant increases in COA and decreases in FA over the next few years. Unless you find a school that will give you merit aid based on your stats, there’s a good chance you’ll be priced out of the UC market.</p>
<p>The first place to start is run your family finances through a FAFSA estimator and get an idea of what your family’s Expected Family Contribution is. That is one indicator of what schools may feel your family should be able to pay for college. Those schools that guarantee to meet full financial need, tend to use an even more stringent calculator, so this is really a minimum most of the time. This also determines your eligibility for the PELL grant. That is a max of about $5K for very low income families. Most students also get qualified for $5500 in Stafford loans for freshman year. Anything else has to come from the colleges, state, family or outside scholarships.</p>
<p>If you are a top drawer student with very high SATs and top 3 or so in your graduating class, having taken difficult courses, you will be in the running for selective schools. The ivies all are need blind and will meet financial need 100%, but you gotta have the need to get the aid and they do all use PROFILE or other financial aid application in addition to FAFSA to get to the silver in your teeth, as many say. They do not give merit money. But with very high stats, you would be in the running for some merit money at a number of schools that do give out scholarships. My son’s close friend is going to UCLA and is such a top student as I described. He got a big $5K scholarship from UCLA, and he is lucky to get that with the CA schools the way they are. He is ecstatic as he did not expect to get anything. He is Asian, and that he got a west coast school makes the trip from his home country less time consuming. He did not get any other awards, and was turned down at a number of schools even with his near perfect SATs and grades. </p>
<p>PA’s top state schools are Pitt and Penn State. If you are a top student, you may get into their prestigious honors college and at Pitt have a shot at the Chancellor’s Scholarship which is highly coveted. Penn State is not so generous with a token award for honors college acceptees. Neither school guarantees to meet financial aid, so if you are not a top student, you are not likely to get need met. The sticker price for these schools in state is getting upt to the high $20K mark these days. UPenn and CMU, your top state privates are bordering on the $60K mark. But if you look at some private options and Catholic schools, you might find a number of them that have some nice merit awards.</p>
<p>My recommendation is to have a varied group of schools on your list. Start with affordable options; schools that will fit you that you can afford. Add some with scholarships and financial aid that you are in the running to get. Then throw in some of the schools with selective admission requirements and that are lottery tickets. If your dream school is Berkeley, apply to Berkeley, but have your eyes wide open that if you get accepted, the likelihood that this school is going to meet your financial need or give you a big fat scholarship is very small. </p>
<p>As for loans, all you can get is $5500 on your own, most likely. Your parents will have to co sign for you and/or take out the PLUS loan. Those loans are usually not favorable in terms or interest rates, so they really need to be able to repay them if they take them since they are not dischargable even in bankruptcy. You need to talk to them about what they can pay towards college, regardless of what the EFC is. Many families cannot pay their EFC. You don’t want to cause them financial stress and problems, so this is very important. </p>
<p>The only drawback to applying to schools you can’t afford unless some miracle occurs is that it can hurt. Now, my kids had no problem with this. MY son immediately forgot about the 3 schools that were too expensive this year, and that was the end of the matter. But if you peruse this forum, you’ll read so many sad posts from kids and parents alike, hurting because they cannot afford first choice or dream schools. It hurts the parents too. We do want to give our kids everything and to fall short on this is really a strain on us. I so wish I could afford more for my kids. A lot of regrets about financial mistakes we made that make it unwise for us to borrow or spend $60K a year or close to it for college. We’ll be stretched meeting the $35K we have committed to our kids, and will have to borrow some of it as we have borrowed for our older kids. Remember this when you talk to your parents–this is one mom’s perspective here.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot all! College is such a complicated matter these days, unfortunately. It does really help to receive so many varies perspectives. One last bit that I would like more insight on is how the whole residency process in CA works, as I understand it is a very complicated process. My situation is slightly abnormal do to complications involving my mother’s marital status, and it is entirely possible that I may end up applying as an independent. Would this change my financial aid situation? More importantly, would it be realistic under these conditions to gain residency by, for example, my junior year? If so, would two OOS years be worth the benefits of residency for the rest of college. Especially since I’m much more sure about going OOS for graduate school for undergrad.</p>
<p>Residency for state tuition purposes are dictated by the school. You can get immediate residency for a number of things in a state, like for a driver’s license, taxes, voting, but for in state tuition the rules can vary from school to school. </p>
<p>Becoming an independent is not easy. Basically, you have to be age 24, have a dependent, be married, be a veteran, or have a court order. And the court order is not something you can just get. What is your home state right now? In a divorce situation, many times the child has flexibility in claiming the custodial parent and often can get in state residency if either parent lives in the state. For some reason, most schools are flexible about this situation, but they tend to be rigorous in terms of declaring independence or getting state residency when neither parent is living in the state.</p>
<p>The UCs generally require the parents to live in CA in order for the student to qualify for in-state residency for tuition purposes. So unless your parents move, no you will not qualify by junior or any year.</p>
<p>Also, you can not apply for financial aid as an undependent until you are 24 (or have a child, get married, etc). It does not matter if your parents claim you or not on their taxes or if you live on your own for awhile.</p>
<p>You seem to have fanciful ideas how all this works. I suggest you read as many articles and websites about how CA residency, Federal Sub and Unsub loans and other financial aid works. Also start playing with online repayment calculators to figure out a realistic max of loans to take out. I suggest no more than 28k total as a ballpark. Definitely never more than 60k and only if immedietly entering a robust high paying field like computer programming.</p>
<p>This CC forum is just a start for all the info you need to learn before making a decision about future debt.</p>
<p>Of course this is just a start. I’m just running off the worst case scenarios in order to gather more information on which to work with. Thanks you for all the information, it certainly does help!</p>
<p>I remember now that you said you are from PA. What is the CA connection?</p>
<p>As far as loans go, another consideration would be how undergrad debt affects graduate school. Massive debt is a reality involved with medical school. Assuming 100k to 200k through this alone, does anyone have tips on how to prepare. For instance, should the main priority be minimizing debt during undergrad to establish good credit?</p>
<p>If you are serious about considering medical school, you should minimize your undergrad debt as much as possible. Be aware there are lifetime limits on the amount of federal (Stafford) loans an individual can take out. Every dollar you borrow for undergrad decreases the amount of federal loans available to pay for med school. Second, if you have undergrad student loans, please make sure you pay them when they come due and pay them on time. As little as 3 missed (or late) payments can disqualify from ever receiving additional federal loans–which are the backbone of financing medical school. Third you will need a clean credit report since if you attend a private medical school, you will need to be credit worthy to get both school sponsored and private loans.</p>
<p>And yes, you should plan at least $100,000 in loans to pay for a state medical school and more than that if you attend a private med school. </p>
<p>If you want to read about the uncomfortable truth about debt and medical school, see AMCAS’s fact card about the expected debt for 2011 entering med students. </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/10debtfactcard.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/10debtfactcard.pdf</a></p>
<p>The main priority should be minimizing debt during the undergrad years.</p>
<p>For reading on all things financial aid, try [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org) For reading on what happens if you take on more debt than you can pay back, see [Project</a> on Student Debt: Home](<a href=“http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org%5DProject”>http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org) To get a good understanding of the factors that affect your FAFSA EFC, print out <a href=“http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/101310EFCFormulaGuide1112.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/101310EFCFormulaGuide1112.pdf</a> and work through it by hand.</p>
<p>Thank you for the links! I am aware of the realities of med school and debt, and I’ve learned to accept it. My mom may not have the means to physically support my career decision, but she has cheered me on to do what I have to do. My personal priority is to balance the necessary expenses while still ending up where I want.</p>