<p>Clarification to Longhaul’s post#30: As of this year, UDel promises to meet full FAFSA-defined need for in-state students with an 18k over four years cap on student loans. Delaware also offers lots of small merit scholarships that make a decent dent in in-state costs, in addition to the few large scholarships (full tuition/rides).</p>
<p>I got a full-tuition scholarship to my college, Pepperdine, and I still have ~ 50K in debt because of room/board expenses as well as a summer program in DC. Room/board adds up FAST. I come from a poor family and had zero financial help from my parents, and I worked summers so I could pay for books/extra stuff. Though I’ll be eternally grateful to Pepperdine for taking care of my tution, my undergrad debt is a main reason why I’m skittish about entering grad school. It also kind of makes me wish I did a lot better in high school so I could have got a 100% free ride to an Ivy, as my friend did.</p>
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<p>Let’s think about this. Let’s say you graduate and make 50K per year. You will pay about $13,400 in income tax + ss + medicare. Now you have about $37K. Your loan payments each year are $13,800. That leaves $23,000. You will be living on less than $2,000 per month…unless you make 40K instead of 50K and have to live on $1433 per month. You will be living at about 150% of the federal poverty level.</p>
<p>YOU have to pay these loans back, not your parents. Maybe they are just trusting that if these loans are available then it must be fine. It’s not fine!!! You are selling yourself into slavery, and if you keep on this course and borrow all of this money, you will spend 10 years saying, “What was I thinking?!”</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>The quote in the above post is significant. The student may end up living at home for a long time AFTER college, because he won’t be able to afford his own place. His “rent” money will be dedicated to his monthly student loan payment.</p>
<p>i was almost in your situation…my parents make too much money for any financial aid but they can’t afford to pay anything for my education due to their own debts, they just paid off their business and are starting on the house, but i ended up not going to any of the schools i wanted to, tufts which would’ve resulted in me taking about 40-45k in loans a yr or my 2nd choice davis which still would’ve been about 35k in loans…so basically i ended up in cc where i totally hate it (i find even honors classes entirely boring and the ppl in them slow to understand anything) though it’ll save me a couple of years and will hopefully result in me transferring to a UC and then taking just 30k (price goes up each year and with insane budget cuts it’ll probably be a lot more) in loans for two years and graduating with 60k in debt…which according to my parents is normal…though they also thought graduating with 150k in debt was also alright and nothing to worry about! my parents never went to college and so they just believe college is worth anything…it was ultimately me who convince them that cc was the right choice, even though i hated it and it has turned out to be torture…living at home is the worst and going to a cc that’s an entirely commuter school without a car and then struggling to participate in meaningful ec’s to help me transfer to a good UC is a nightmare…but i didn’t really have any other options…</p>
<p>I don’t want to hijack this post, but it occurs to me that with all this enormous debt young people are taking on, there will be a lot of non-payers. I’m not familiar with bankruptcy laws, but I thought school loans could never be forgiven in bankruptcy. Would someone clarify?</p>
<p>There has been talk of a bank style bailout, probably be politically very popular.</p>
<p>there will be a lot of non-payers for various reasons…</p>
<p>1) there will be some who take out huge loans for 1-3 years and never graduate.</p>
<p>2) there will be some who will marry a spouse who has similarly high loans making repayment impossible.</p>
<p>3) there will be some who will always be “under-employed” for their loans.</p>
<p>4) there will be some who have some other expensive financial crises in their lives.</p>
<p>and so forth and so forth.</p>
<p>However, bankruptcy for huge loans would be a huge problem in the long run. It would seriously reduce the incentive for repayment.</p>
<p>Currently you can’t declare bankruptcy for gov student loans. You can pile up as much debt as you pretty much wish, and then try to pay it back, if you don’t they take it out of your social security or lien your home or something like that. It’s a Dickensian world. It’s easy for borrowers to be irresponsible, especially since they’re young, but also highly irresponsible for colleges and the gov to be encouraging this kind of borrowing. The lack of bankruptcy protection encourages a lot of lender abuse. I suspect if things continue and enough people fall into enough debt there’ll be a movement for change.
[Hearing</a> on: an Undue Hardship? Discharging Educational Debt in Bankruptcy](<a href=“http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_090923_1.html]Hearing”>http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_090923_1.html)</p>
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<p>Plus, there’s this encouragement of kids getting hooked on attending their “dream schools” even if they don’t have the money and have parents with high EFCs that they can’t pay, etc. It creates this feeding frenzy of borrowing loans. There are even threads where kids are almost boasting “who has the biggest loans.” “no, mine’s bigger.” "no, mine’s bigger.'</p>
<p>If I get into William and Mary, I’d say about 11k a year, probably less after aid and hopefully scholarships.</p>
<p>Then its med school… 35-55k a year + the cost of living.</p>
<p>So I might be 200k in debt.</p>
<p>Joy…</p>
<p>(Lets not forget the extra thousands of dollars on book costs =/)</p>
<p>Keilexandra
Thanks for the clarification on U of DE!</p>
<p>It’s one thing to have big loans for med/law/dental/MBA … But, it’s another to have big loans for undergrad.</p>
<p>The taking out of loans is a personal and family decision. For some, this would NOT be something they would even want to contemplate. For others, they could make the decision that a loan will improve cash flow while the kiddos are in college and that help repaying later is possible. For others, a loan might just be what they plan to do for college.</p>
<p>I think it’s a VAST overgeneralization to say that the only ones who might have large loans are those attending professional schools. There are MANY reasons why a family and student might choose a smaller, more expensive school over a public university.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>Very true, that some would choose a smaller, more expensive school over a big public for undergrad :)</p>
<p>But, if attending requires big loans that will give the student large monthly payments, that may not be the wisest choice if the student’s earning power will be modest during those payback years. </p>
<p>Of course, it the parents are going to be paying back those loans, that’s a different story.</p>
<p>I went to community college for two years and worked part time while I was in school. I got a 1,000 pell grant the first year and nothing the second year. I lived at home and saved my money. The school was 26$ per unit so it cost me about 1600 for tuition. For books I simply bought used and resold at end of semester I got back about 80% of the money I spent. For my two year degree I only spend maybe 2-3k. </p>
<p>For my BA I went to a state school (california state university). At the CSU tuition is a flat fee, 1,500 per semester. I went 4 semester and that cost 6k. Add in 1-2k for books and misc expenses and I only spent 10k for my BA. Meanwhile, I was working the whole time, saving my money. I had 50k cash when I graduated which I used to buy my first home :)</p>
<p>Meanwhile I had another friend who went to an expensive school, ended up with 70k in student loans from ba and MBA. So far hes been unemployed for 8 months and working mostly crappy jobs, he was an economics major. He did have some fairly decent jobs but with cost of living, he hasn’t made a dent in his student loans. Just paying minimum payment.</p>
<p>Remember guys, you cant file bankruptcy to get rid of student loans. You will pay back every penny with interest. Some of you guys will be paying back your student loans until the day you die, I am not kidding.</p>
<p>Here’s a student loan calculator, so you can figure out your payments.</p>
<p>[FinAid</a> | Calculators | Loan Calculator](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml]FinAid”>http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml)</p>
<p>And here is a student loan advisor, so you can figure out if it is “worth” it, financially, given your likely income in your chosen field.</p>
<p>[FinAid</a> | Calculators | Student Loan Advisor - Undergraduate Students](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org/calculators/undergradadvisor.phtml]FinAid”>http://www.finaid.org/calculators/undergradadvisor.phtml)</p>
<p>Rutgers is good school and is a good deal financially. Full disclosure: That’s my alma mater, but my DS wouldn’t consider it because it is too close to home. From accepted students day, I gather they have a good placement rate for jobs in NYC and based on the average income by graduates, they are one of the best investments in a college education.</p>
<p>But I am confused by the OPs posts- he is at a CC and has a year’s worth of credits, but will need 8 semesters to finish? So, he slacking off now and is planning to continue to slack off? If so, there’s a price to pay.</p>
<p>I guess another question is…</p>
<p>In your opinion, how much debt is too much for undergrad, when the student will be solely responsible for repayment?</p>
<p>$50k? … $80k …$100k … more?</p>
<p>I would say that if …</p>
<p>you’re going to be a teacher; it might not be wise to borrow more than $25k total - because your monthly payments will be about $280 per month - which could be a lot for a teacher during her first years of employment (unless hired by one of those districts that has a high starting salary.) The same would apply to other grads whose salaries will be rather modest for the first few years after graduation.</p>
<p>you’re going to be an engineer; it might not be wise to borrow more than $50k total - because your monthly payments will be about $575 per month. The same would apply to other grads that might have starting salaries around $50k or so.</p>
<p>That’s just my opinion…YMMV :)</p>
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<p>As you said… it depends. But the student should do everything possible to minimize debt.</p>
<p>Let’s put it this way- I am a sophomore and my parents will not tell me how much they have saved up. They had enough money before I was born.</p>
<p>So, no debt.</p>
<p>And yes, I am aware how extremely fortunate I am. I’m not even one of the richest people in my town.</p>