How much debt is too much?

College Search & Selection
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@notigering thank you for your input! It’s very balanced and comprehensive. It’s true that no one knows my situation, and I have kept that in mind. I wanted different perspectives on how much debt people are willing to take on for college, and I’ve discovered a multitude of answers.

Unfortunately my parents aren’t the best at keeping promises, but they try. It’s a 50/50 guess, so I need to be a little more mature about this situation.

Even so, I’ve always been an anxious type A sort of person. While my parents are more optimistic, I’ve never seen the glass half full. Even I realize that I underestimate myself a lot and often am too anxious. However, I think this choice is extremely important and worth the extra caution. I will continue to squeeze out info from my parents, so hopefully I will be more confident with my choices by the time I apply.

@LBad96 Yup! I know I like Tech, and I’ve been to my safety school many times before. I’ve scheduled a visit at Bama, so hopefully I can confirm if I like it or not. The only school I’m iffy about is my CC, but I’d only have to stay there for 2 years… I’m trying to find more engineering schools that I like, but I’ll try starting a new thread for that…

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@agentaquastar If you are willing to consider schools in the West, with your stats there are many options where you could get the cost of attendance down to less than 20K (excluding travel costs). Frankly, I don’t know if they’d be better options than VA Tech or Alabama but it doesn’t hurt to look. U of NM, U of Idaho, and U of WY offer reasonable merit-based packages to strong OOS students. You might run the numbers at South Dakota and Colorado School of Mines as well.

If U of Richmond offers engineering, you might want to check it out. They offer generous merit scholarships to high stats students.

I also want to add my congratulations to you for your maturity and clearsightedness. I am confident that you will succeed at whatever college is lucky enough to enroll you!

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@agentaquastar I think you have a lot to be optimistic about. As a VA student with your scores, right now Alabama engineering is about $15,000 plus expenses, and Tech is about $22,000 plus expenses. You’re pretty much guaranteed to get into Alabama, and Tech seems very likely. If you’re willing to work and save for most of your expenses. and borrow the typical $5500 a year, I really think it’s likely your parents can find a way to give you one or both options. And it’s at least possible another good school will come up with merit that’s at least close to full tuition, which could be doable.

My own D just got into UVa and Tech, and is going to UVa. We’re going to pay what we can, and we’ll probably have to borrow about $20,000 total for four years, and she will have to borrow another $20-25,000. My thinking is that if you’re willing to borrow $20,000 to buy a car, you should be willing to do the same to send your child to college (or to go to college). I think you and your parents can find what the reasonable financial point is for all of you, so I wouldn’t worry so much now. You will have plenty to worry about next December through March when you’re actually applying!

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One issue to consider at VT is that all engineering frosh enter in a general pre-engineering status. A 3.0 college GPA in the prerequisites assures later admission to an engineering major, but students with lower GPAs compete for any remaining spots by GPA.

http://enge.vt.edu/content/dam/enge_vt_edu/undergraduate/com_requirements/COM_GE.pdf

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U Richmond does not have engineering, but it does have very good science, math, and CS programs. My recent UR grad double majored in Biochemistry and CS, had a great experience, and was accepted to PhD programs at UVA, UNC Chapel Hill and Duke. She was a Richmond Science Scholar and attended on a full ride science scholarship. I have another UR student who also attends with a full tuition scholarship, and she is having a great experience, too. We feel as though we won the lottery, twice:)

UR does have excellent undergrad research opportunities in Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry and Environmental Studies (pretty much great opportunities in any major):

http://environmental.richmond.edu
http://bmb.richmond.edu/
http://biology.richmond.edu/
http://chemistry.richmond.edu/

They usually have several Goldwater scholars each year as well, 3 winners this past year.

As I commented in an earlier post, Richmond is a wonderful area to be a college student, and UR’s merit $ opportunities are worth investivating.

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@ucbalumnus yikes that’s competitive… That will make it harder or even impossible to maintain a decent job during the school year bc I’ll have to keep up my grades… Which again, makes VT harder to afford…

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At this point you mare making a list of schools to APPLY to. You have one or two options that appear to be safeties, financially and academically (Bama and the other one). VTech might work financially.

At this point i['d add a few more schools if you like, that may offer sufficient merit for you to attend - some that might be in the $30k range, and then sort it all out with your parents when acceptances and merit aid are all in and on the table next year.

For now, you just want to cover all the bases and make sure you have a couple of solid, for-sure affordable options, and it seems like you’ve got that.

48

@agentaquastar you should be ok getting into VT Civil E with freshman grades towards the lower end of the 3.0 minimum requirement…3.2+ will likely do it but close to 3.5 is better to give you room for tougher semesters later on. If you were looking at Aero, ME, or CS you’d need to be closer to 4.0 than 3.0 to get your 1st choice.

Civil is very strong at VT and if you’re from NoVA, VA Beach/Norfolk area, or Richmond you should have good chance of internships in those areas after sophomore year (maybe even freshman). Saves $$ if you can live at home and work. And if you’re lucky, you could also work the month you’re off between fall and spring semester. You’d be looking at $12+/hr to start and going up in subsequent years. Civil has its’ own career fair 2x/year - don’t need to go to a general engineering fair. Usually occur late September and February/March. That said, they’re not known for merit aid but this year seem to be improving in that area from what I hear. Also most students move off campus for sophomore year + and you can save a little $ doing that.

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take my opinion with 2 cents, but 2 cents are too much enough

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@JustGraduate I looked at general engineering to major requirements and I see 3.0 gets you choice of major. Is there some newer link I am missing? 3.0 in first year courses should be doable for most kids admitted there to General engineering but depends on motivation, aptitude, effort.

51

@servmom - you’re right, freshman engineering student < 3.0 gets rank ordered by GPA and open spots. Thanks for correction. For some stupid reason I was thinking about the old transfer policy when your GPA determined which engineering major you got into.

That said, a 3.0 freshman engineer going into Aero, ME, or CS is going to be at the low end of GPA scale and may have their hands full competing in their major. Those are CoE’s 3 highest GPA’s majors and typically go down some as difficulty in upper level classes ramps up. A few other E majors at VT tend to carry lower GPA’s early on and upper classes are not thought to be as much of a change in level of difficulty so GPA’s are easier to maintain later in the program.

Student rank in their CoE overall and CoE major are shown in their on-line account and updated yearly I believe. Interesting to see the difference between the 2 rankings.

Thanks for catching my mis-information

52

You should strongly consider adding the University of Alabama at Huntsville into your plans.

UAH is a strong engineering school, offers a guaranteed merit package similar to UA Birmingham but even better. They have an honors college, you can get a single dorm room as a freshman. They do coop, meaning you will work in engineering while you are at school. This will give you $0 debt, valuable experience, and very likely a permanent job before you graduate.

You will get the best deal if you are a US citizen or permanent resident with green card. NASA and Dept. of Defense plus contractors are some of the big players in Huntsville. How cool would it be to work and do research at NASA?

UAH has guaranteed merit aid, plus you can submit stronger scores (grades, tests) at anytime and they will bump up your package accordingly. I also think they stack scholarships, meaning you could be making money here. They do 4 year combined BSE/masters programs, as well.

College Confidential has a UAH applications person who is very, very, very helpful. Just shoot an CC message and he/she can give you further information, including what your scholarship package looks like. I’ve emailed several times with detailed questions and be very pleased with the timely, detailed responses. Excellent customer service.

DO NOT GO INTO DEBT. DO NOT LET YOUR PARENTS GO INTO DEBT.

Debt will affect your ability to change majors, take a job you love or quit a job you hate, buy a house, get married, travel the world, even affect the size of your family, whether you can stay home with kids, or start your own business. Don’t put on those golden handcuffs.

With your stats, it’s not necessary. In your field, it’s not necessary.

Here’s my perspective: my children are looking for full rides, plus, for college. I won’t pay a dime. I can’t pay a dime - we are Pell-eligible, EFC $0.

We none of us know what the future holds. When the children were toddlers, my husband died suddenly. I spoke to him one day and 30 hours later he was dead. I quit my Fortune 50 job to stay home. With no debt, I was able to do so.

NO DEBT!

53

If they can’t afford it, the school is not an option. You can go over the numbers, and it seems like 2 years at CC is a reasonable trade-off, but they get to make the decision.

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One of the things that you have to consider is that your parents are worried about how where you go to college reflects on THEM. If you go to CC or some “lesser” school for financial reasons, they are maybe worried about that their social circle will look down upon them. Parents get utility from being able to say “My kid goes to X”. Some way overvalue it. And are willing to do anything to make it happen. This can become even worse if everyone knows that you could have gone to a “better” school. Then all of the focus is on them and not you. It is amazing what some parents will pay for a sweatshirt and car decal.
What this means is that a straight cost benefit analysis doesn’t always work. You have to change the conversation to give them something to brag about. Something like “they want MY kid so badly that they are throwing money at her/him”. This way they are smart not “poor”.

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@Eeyore123 Thank you for your input! It’s been a while since I’ve looked at this thread, but I’ve worked out most things with my parents now. I did ask them before if they just wanted me to go to a selective school for bragging rights, but I’ll trust what they said when they told me that’s not the reason. They were worried mostly about job placement and how opportunities are “harder” to attain at lesser schools.
However, I’ve sat down with them multiple times to explain how I will do well with the major and schools I’ve researched. They’re now supportive of my choices (all “safe” but affordable schools) as long as I keep the mindset to work hard to make up for what those schools might be missing. I did apply to 2 reach schools (in terms of admission or affordability) under their urging, but I probably won’t make it anyways. And they’re fine with my top affordable safety, so I’m satisfied with that.

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Congratulations!