<p>Do you need financial aid? Need-based or merit-based? That is the paramount factor.</p>
<p>Fordham? in nyc</p>
<p>Probably merit based. My family could do 20-30k and anything more, I could always get a loan for although that would be a hassle and probably hard to get with this economy. But my mom's always said we could probably do 40k.</p>
<p>Are you NMF? If not, you pretty much have no safeties other than in-state publics, because very few schools will guarantee 20k merit aid. Cast a wide net and apply to schools with a high number of merit awards that would make attendance possible for you.</p>
<p>I'll definitely give Fordham a lot of thought! It looks great, thanks for the suggestion. I'll probably end up applying there, just in case. I had just previously gave it a quick overview since at the time I was busy, but now that you've suggested it I'll look again. It seems intriguing.</p>