<p>b@r!um: loans are a perfectly good funding source if combined with other sources (ie., one or two among on campus work-study, personal savings, a sponsor, parents’ income, parents’ savings, a government scholarship…) but they’re considered suspicious if they’re supposed to provide $250,000 in funding as would be the case here.
More generally, my expression was a shortcut – the source is my experience with many students - and I didn’t mean “the Embassy systematically refuses visas to students who only secured a loan and have no other source of funding”, although that has happened, but rather than the combination of (not having money in the bank) + (needing admission to have loan/needing loan for admission results) means that in practicality students with this option don’t get a visa. What I meant earlier, except not in a nutshell 
It also depends on the country (Europeans and Canadians have an advantage - even with sufficient funding and admission, some African students can get turned down “not providing sufficient evidence they intend to return to their home country”. Loans do not count in that evidence if they’re not from your own bank since the bank indicates an obligation to return home whereas a foreign loan doesn’t - and only a banking account with money in it counts.)</p>
<p>Singerfromlondon: you should try to diversify a little. Look into the music programs that interest you, even if they’re not in NYC. Look into Eastman School of Music, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, New England Conservatory, Berklee, Ithaca, but also Oberlin’s or Lawrence’s conservatories. No idea whether those would meet your needs but look into each of them.
Then, see what CUNY can offer. Then look into the universities in/around NYC: Fordham, Hofstra, etc.</p>