<p>If I make it into Carnegie Mellon, even with my fafsa "need" met, I will have to take out huge sums of money in student loans.</p>
<p>Assuming I don't get any huge scholarships, with the average salary of someone graduation from CMU, it will take me close to 20 years to pay them off.</p>
<p>:(</p>
<p>You do understand that Early Decision people are at a disadvantage in receiving and getting competitive financial aid. ?</p>
<p>Actually, they are not for CMU. You get your full need met with ED, whereas RD = little aid.</p>
<p>I don't know what you're worried about. You can get loans are really low interest rates, like 1-2% and the US dollar is falling fast. You can easily beat 2% in a bank or on the market, so there's really no reason to worry. It's basically free money. I'm talking about federal loans. There are also other favorable loans.</p>
<p>EDIT: also, you'll come out of CMU with like a 70k salary, varying by major... engineering and CS make good money. So if you can manage to live on like 40k for 4 years, you'll have paid off your loans.</p>
<p>I mean, right now I live on very little. Without CMU's services, it would cost me... $550 rent and utils, $50 transportation, $300 food, $50 entertainment, $100 clothes and stuff, and maybe another $100 of random expenses. That's $1150 per month = $13,800 per year. It's quite easy to live cheap.</p>
<p>2nd EDIT: Pittsburgh is a cheap city, so it's significantly cheaper to eat NOT on meal plan and to not live in campus housing, if you share rent.</p>
<p>This school is a master of how it uses it funds to entice prospective students. You may discover that meeting need based aid can mean a wide variety of options. You should thoroughly understand their aid and enrollment policy- CMU has more to gain from ED than you wanting ED. </p>
<p>As for 1% - 2% loans, I would like to know where that can be found. Such loan information is misleading and perhaps false. BEWARE!</p>
<p>i havent heard of 1-2% loans anywhere in america. federal student loans are something like 6.8, and they are typically known as the best available. btw, im taking out about 10k per year to pay for cmu. im probably looking at 55k debt at graduation w/ inflation, etc, but at this point, i think it is worth it.</p>
<p>Oh damn. My bad on the loans. I don't know where I got 1-2%...</p>
<p>Carnegie</a> Mellon - Enrollment Services</p>
<p>That's CMU's information on loans. I guess my point is that you should be able to pay off loans, but it's your decision if you want to undertake it or not.</p>