<p>If I go to the college of my choice, Notre Dame, I will be in about 45-50,000$ in debt after four years. Is this too much? I have a trust fund I would exhaust to pay for the cost, and financial aid, which leaves me with this much debt.
I could go to the cheaper choice, OSU, and not exhaust my trust fund, thus having significantly less/no debt. </p>
<p>I just don't know: how much is too much? I know it may vary, but how much is average/easily dealt with?</p>
<p>General rule of thumb is to not take on more debt than what you (realistically) expect your starting salary to be when you graduate. So if you think you’ll be making around 50k a year post-grad, you probably shouldn’t take out more than 50k in loans.</p>
<p>Thanks! I have no idea what I will be doing after I graduate, yet, however. I was considering medical school but am not so sure anymore. I am kinda up in the air haha.</p>
<p>That rule of thumb is appropriate for most fields but not all. If you intend to go into science for instance, undergrad debt is not that big of a deal because your graduate years will be paid for (tuition remission and stipend).</p>
<p>Any undergraduate debt is too much. Ever since I was a hs freshman people drilled into my head that I shouldn’t take on any debt to pay for my undergrad degree, instead go massively into debt for your grad study.</p>
<p>If I read you correctly, you will pay for Notre Dame with about $160,000 in trust fund and about $50,000 in student loans.</p>
<p>So the broader question really isn’t about $50,000 in loans, but about $210,000, and whether Notre Dame is worth $130,000 more to you than Ohio St. ($210,000 - $80,000).</p>
<p>As to the specific question, if you intend to work for a couple of years and then go to Law School or any other pay out of pocket grad program, undergrad debt can be really tough to pay back under those circumstances.</p>
<p>Have you run the monthly payback numbers? If your monthly loan payment is more than 15% of your take home (after tax, after benefits) income, you will really feel it – it limits your ability to pay for travel, vacations, etc.</p>
<p>I doubt that ND is worth that much debt compared to Ohio State, especially if you intend to go to medical school.</p>
<p>And many, if not most, graduate programs are NOT fully paid with a stipend. Going to OSU will keep your long term options open.</p>
<p>I am really confused about the calculations regarding monthly loan payments, etc… I guess the reason I am so unsure about my decision is that I don’t feel knowledgeable about finances enough to know what I am getting myself into. I got some financial aid grants, so I don’t have $160,000 in trust fund; it’s under $100,000.
I want to go to ND because it’s a great school, is well regarded, the campus is beautiful, and I like a lot about it. OSU is not as appealing because of it’s size to me.
Would I be much better off coming out of college with a degree from Notre Dame; or is it really not that big of a deal? [Like easier to get a job]</p>
<p>Sometimes employers may pull up your credit score when looking at your application. So they’ll see your ND degree, but they’ll also see how massively into debt you are. That can be embarrassing. Ohio State is still a very well-regarded school, also. Especially in the Midwest. ND is obviously regarded more highly, but Ohio State isn’t that much worse.</p>
<p>I can’t answer what should be important for you. If ND is something you think would have such a huge effect on your life, then you should absolutely go for it. If you got a significant amount of finaid from them, even better. Here’s how I look at it though: I want to be able to buy myself a new car and maybe travel to Europe or South America after I graduate college. Definitely won’t be able to do that if I graduate with mountains of debt. </p>
<p>Also, I want to go on to grad school…so being under a lot of debt will severely limit my options. Fortunately interest won’t accumulate on some of your loans until you stop being a full-time student, but unfortunately, I don’t think most of your loans are that way.</p>
<p>If you just want to graduate with your undergrad degree and get a job, that’s a much much different situation than if you want to splurge on yourself after you graduate and/or go into med school/grad school/law school.</p>
<p>Notre Dame is such a beautiful campus. And so much tradition. I always wanted to go there. For some reason I was an idiot and didn’t include it in my first round of applications, and then it was too late–I didn’t realize how early their application deadlines were. Ah well, probably a good thing that I wasn’t tempted to spend $200,000 on my undergrad! It’s much easier to say stuff when it’s not you that actually has the dilemma of Ohio State or Notre Dame, which by the way, is not a bad dilemma!</p>
<p>If you are thinking of medical school at all seriously, 50K of debt is a lot to accumulate just for undergraduate school. If you are considering graduate school in most of the sciences, engineering, or research-based social sciences, you will get a stipend and tuition waiver from any good school that I have heard of, but even with that, 50K of debt is pretty limiting. </p>
<p>If you were planning to major in some of the engineering fields or computer science, I might–maybe–think 40K of debt is OK, as long as you did not want to travel, as osucowboy mentions. Another problem with having significant debt staring you in the face the minute you finish school is that you might feel pressured to take a job that initially pays more, rather than a lower-paying job that has better long-term prospects.</p>
<p>If you attend OSU, make a real effort to get to know some professors. Don’t be too shy about asking if there is any research you can get involved in. Often working on a project a few hours a week during the school year leads to summer employment on a research project on campus, and that is a great way to stand out when you ask for recommendations for jobs or grad. school. Big schools can provide a lot of options, and that part is good, but they do require students to be pro-active, to pay attention to opportunities, and to make sure their advising is good. It is a bit more work, in that regard.</p>
<p>I personally wouldn’t go more than $20,000 into debt for undergrad…And I’m not planning on going to grad school right after either. It really doesn’t seem worth it to me.</p>
<p>If you were intending to get into business right after college (finance, sales, marketing, management tgrainee), then I do think that Notre Dame might be worth it.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any other scenario in which it would be worth $50k in debt plus about half of your trust fund… which you could use in a few years as a downpayment on a house.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for all of the replies!
My family feels pretty strongly that it would be worth it to go to Notre Dame, because of the networking, prestige, and the fact that I would be able to pay off my debt once getting a good job.
I would actually use ALL of my trust fund and be $50k in debt.
However -
as my trust fund is depleted, and my sister joins me at college next year, I am hopeful my fin.aid will go up. Is this reasonable?</p>
<p>It’s hard to say if it’s worthwhile–you have to plug in the numbers into the financial aid calculator. If your parents feel strongly, why aren’t they contributing? I personally think about $27,000 is the top I would let my kid take on debt (the amount of Stafford loans). That’s another question–what kind of loans are you talking about? The only reasonable loans for students are the Stafford loans. Are your parents also planning to take out loans?</p>
<p>My parents are not expected to contribute - they do not have the money to. I am in a bad financial situation, and the reason my fin. aid is not much higher is because of my trust fund. Which is why, I reasoned, as I use my trust fund, and gain a sibling at college, my fin. aid will increase.
$5,250 per year would be Stafford and Perkins loans I believe. So I guess the other $25k would be something else?</p>
<p>Ooh man. You should really think of your sister, if she has no trust fund herself. And don’t count on that trust fund staying afloat for the next 4 years.</p>
<p>It’s going to be very difficult for a student to get an unsecured loan.</p>
<p>OP – I’m going to be blunt here, so skip to the next post if you wish…</p>
<p>Your parents are in NO POSITION, intelletual or moral, to advise you about spending money. It is not their trust fund that will go to ZERO, it is not their LOAN DEBT… and hear me out here – if they are not financially secure, YOU will need to contribute to THEIR retirement in a few years.</p>
<p>YOu are in no position to spend all your trust fund, and take on $50k in loans, when your family unit has no safety net AT ALL.</p>
<p>Notre Dame is great. You should spend $150k+ of your own cash to go there… PERIOD.</p>
<p>I would tend to agree. Bankrupting the family in order to go to Notre Dame is kinda…shalwesay, evil.</p>
<p>I don’t see how the OP can actually get $50,000 in loans. Does anybody have a solution for this, without using his parents?</p>