If I go to my first choice school, Cornell, it is very, very likely that I will have to pay tuition at full price. I will have to take in around $200,000 in debt. I will not go into detail about the causes of these circumstances, but assume that this is the case for me.
Should I attend Cornell (if I’m accepted) at full price or a mid-tier state school that is #70 on most college ranking lists ($13,000 in-state tuition)? Here is my only consideration: Is a Cornell degree in electrical and computer engineering worth $200,000 in debt, or is a mid-tier state school degree a better deal? I’m only concerned with which decision will be the best for me financially, so for now just assume that how much I like the campus or location is irrelevant. I’m not looking to go this much in debt just to have a good college experience, I need to know if this will (literally) pay off in the end.
I can’t imagine having that much debt after graduation. My rough calculations make that out to be $2,000 a month in payments over 10 years. That’s colossal and will dramatically affect your ability to make a living.
No school is worth even half of that much debt. That is an insane amount of debt.
Are your parents crazy enough to cosign that much debt? That would be very sad if they did. They’d be burdening you in a way that no parent should participate in.
Do you have any idea what the monthly payments would be on that much debt??
Do you realize that companies that hire you will pay you the SAME as the other new hires that they hire from a “mid-tier state school”??
fast forward 4+ years from now.
How would you feel having to make $2,000 a month debt payments for TEN LONG YEARS while your fellow new hires with little/no debt are able to afford to buy new homes, marry, and move on with their lives?
Keep in mind that an undergraduate degree is a Veblen good and the bubble is due to burst any day now. The market will re-adjust itself, and you’ll be “underwater” in your education. You will owe more than its worth.
The difference between the earning potential of a Cornell engineer and a state school educated engineer is negligible. The premium that you pay to say you went to Cornell will quite literally never be paid off. And you and your parent’s credit score will be adversely affected for ten or more years, making it more expensive to borrow money for cars/houses.
The sum totality here is that you should take the state school option, especially if you can qualify for some sort of financial aid, e.g. Pell grants or merit scholarships.
You cannot take on that much student loan debt without a cosigner, usually a parent. That would be a very bad idea for both you and your parents.
Even the unnamed state school with $13,000 per year tuition plus whatever other costs (living expenses, books, etc.) may be too high debt to be reasonable.
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or a mid-tier state school that is #70 on most college ranking lists ($13,000 in-state tuition)?
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Sounds like this is VT. In no way would taking on ANY significant debt for Cornell be worth if if you can go to VT and have no or very little debt.
BUT…how would you pay the $25k+ per year to go to VT? If going there would ALSO mean large debt ($50k+), then you need to look at schools where your stats would give you free tuition or more.
HOW MUCH will your parents pay each year? Are you saying that they won’t pay ANYTHING??
Full-ride merit scholarships covering everything down to shampoo and toothpaste or a visit from the tuition, room & board fairy - both are just about equally as likely…
While I’m sure there are some parents who won’t pay even if they reasonably could, I have a suspicion that it’s not always the case. I don’t think all these parents are saying they won’t pay anything, I think they just won’t pay for an expensive dream school when more affordable options are available. There’s a thread on one of the forums now by a student who’s miserable at the current (affordable) school and calls the mom several times a day to tell her it’s her fault for not letting kiddo go to an expensive OOS college. I suspect that in some (if not many) cases, we’d get a different story if the parents weighed in.
