Is full out-of-state tuition for UCs worth it?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - GENERAL
1

I’ve been put in a very tough scenario and I am being tugged back and forth in between decisions. Here’s the deal:

Accepted to: UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, USC, University of Florida, and Florida State University
Wait-listed by: UCLA and UC Berkeley
Waiting on: Stanford

Major: Computer Engineer / Computer Science

It’s always been my dream to go to college in California and live there happily ever after. I tried harder than anyone I know in high school, balancing a total of 13 AP classes and 3 Varsity sports throughout the past 4 years and have gotten straight A’s (my SAT scores are OK). My point is that it has been an absolute grind. I’ve put in countless hours of work in hopes of attending one of the prestigious UCs.

However, as decisions are coming in and I have yet to really receive any scholarship money, I am starting to realize the insane cost of Out-of-State tuition to any UC. As a result, I (and especially my parents) am starting to see that I may just have to fall back to UF, where I would have in-state tuition and a little bit of scholarship money. Financially this would make more sense, also considering the fact that UF is still a well respected university…

But my ego gets in the way a bit as I find it hard to allow myself to go to some state school (UF) that has admitted thousands of other kids who didn’t do a fraction of what I had to go through in high school. Basically what I am saying is I tried WAY too hard to end up at UF. If I knew I was bound to go there, I could have lightened up my rigorous schedule significantly.

Now that my sob story is out of the way here is some important info:

My parents have an income of around $200k-$250k a year.
They are willing to pay around the same amount of money that they paid for my older brother’s college which was about $60k total. Ideally I could probably get them to pay $70k for me, but not much more.

With this being said, I would be able to attend UF and come out completely debt free. Paid for. Done.

For any UC school OOS tuition is around $50k-$55k a YEAR. So we are looking at around $200k for my undergrad.
Lets say my parents pay $70k, so now I’m at $130k for my undergrad at a UC, which will have to be paid through student loans.

$130k in student loans? Sounds pretty bad to me, but I’m just an 18 yr old. Is it realistic that I could pay off that debt? Is it worth it? Will my life be ruined? Obviously I will end up paying way more than $130k in the long run due to interest rates, but I don’t know how to accurately figure that out. It would depend on how quickly I can start paying it off I guess.

I hear two sides of the story:

  1. That kind of debt will ruin your 20s, if not your 30s as well. You will regret it forever. UF is a good school, just go there. You can always go to Cali after college, etc. My parents are very much on this bandwagon.
  2. The experience, education, network/connections (especially for CS major) are totally worth it. You will be able to get a very good job as a result and then will be able to pay off the debt relatively quickly. You will regret turning down this opportunity, etc.

I don’t want to have any regrets. I don’t want to end up being in my 20s, in a crappy apartment in Cali with creditors chasing me, wishing that I just stayed in-state.

But I also really don’t want to go through the rest of my life speculating the “what-if’s” and the “I-should-have’s” of my life, wishing that I took a leap of faith over to California and went to my dream college.

My college rankings go like this:

  1. Berkeley
  2. UCLA
  3. UCSB
  4. USC
  5. UCD
  6. UCSD
  7. UF
  8. FSU
  9. I know I’m not gonna get into Stanford lol

Note - I did get wait-listed by UCLA and Berkeley, but for theoretical purposes lets say I end up being admitted.

Obviously some UCs are more “worth it” than others. I am primarily concerned with Berkeley, then UCLA, UCSB, and USC; but would rather go to any Cali school than stay in-state (Florida). I am confident that even at Berkeley I will be able to succeed and do well, so I’m not worried about that.

I was also wondering if there are scholarship opportunities (or things of that nature) that can be taken up once you get to one of these schools (ie. Berkeley) in order to lessen the amount I have to take out in loans. I know that getting Cali residency for tuition purposes is virtually impossible for me.

So… what should I do? what should I consider? I know there is no straight forward answer I guess, but I need points of view. I respect my parents’ advice but think they are very biased. Elaborate feedback is very appreciated. I’m trying to figure out the rest of my life. Thanks to everyone in advanced!

2

You cannot as a student take at that much money in loans. The maximum is $27K for 4 years ($5500 Freshman year, $6500 Sophomore year and $7500 Junior/Senior year). The rest would have to funded by your parents using Parent Plus loans or private loans which would be in their name and therefore their debt. Are they willing to do this for you? If you want to go to a UC, consider coming to California for Grad school. Not a realistic option. Go to UF debt free

3

You can live happily ever after in California after you finish college. Go to school in Florida.

4

Even if you could take 130K in loans, you would be regretting it LONG past your 20’s and 30’s. Go where the $$$ is. That is a TON of debt. It’s too bad that you weren’t aware of the high OOS costs for UCs before you sent so may apps to CA. Your HS rigor will make you very prepared for college - don’t feel like it is wasted!

5

With that amount of debt, you would be hard pressed to live in CA after graduation. If you could even get those loans, which you can’t.

6

If you have to borrow the money, absolutely not.

7

I can’t think of a single situation where it’d be worth it it this case. Go to UF, save the tuition money, and come out to California once you’re done with college if you decide you want to move out here.

And for the record, USC isn’t a UC.

8

Don’t take on that kind of debt - it will haunt you for years. The UC’s are expensive, even for many Californians. When my son graduated 3 years ago, some of his friends went to the less expensive CSU’s (the other university system in California, which are not research institutions, like the UC’s) and are getting excellent educations at schools like Cal Poly and San Diego State. Some went to community college for two years and then transferred into the UC’s and other schools. Two of his best friends did this, one is now at Berkeley with him, the other at UC Davis.

I wouldn’t assume however, that it is easy to get into a UC as a graduate student. Take a look at your university’s web site and see if they show what graduate schools their students are getting into. Or call and ask the department you are interested in. For instance at Cal Poly, a physics graduate is unlikely to get into many of the top graduate schools at a research university. However, I have known Cal Poly engineering graduates who go on to UC’s and Stanford, the Cal Poly College of Engineering is considered one of the best in the nation.

9

Yes, whatever other private loans that I would have to take out my parents will co sign for me. Unfortunately it really does seem like going to a UC is not a realistic or smart option. Its upsetting news, but I’m sure I’ll get over it after a month or two into UF. I think I’ve read before that 30% of UC students are from OOS… and I doubt many of them are getting significant scholarships/grants and I also doubt that a lot of them are are wealthy enough to drop $200k on a UC… so how are they paying for this? Did thousands of students just make a really bad decision? I’ve applied to several outside scholarship opportunities to potentially get enough money =to make it less detrimental to go to Berkeley (if I get admitted in May), but it’s a long shot.

10

No UC is worth 130k in loans over UF. It might be a different story if your parents could pay cash for it.

UCs eliminated all need-based financial aid (scholarships/grants) for OOS students starting withe Fall 2016 freshman class, so past statistics aren’t indicative of future classes. It’s safe to assume that going forward, OOS students at UC will either be wealthy enough to pay cash, or take out huge loans as in your case.

11

U applied OOS to FIVE UC schools? WHY??? UGH…

Yeah, u should definitely be kicking yourself over “what ifs” and “I should haves”, as in “what if I had applied to the MANY other attractive affordable options in California”? Seriously, did u even visit any of these UC schools you worship? Or are you just have an irrational crush on them? FIVE of them OOS??? It boggles the mind…

Why didn’t you apply to some schools (public or private) that grant merit aid so you wouldn’t have to “end up at UF”?

There are no magic, no-strings-attached outside scholarships that appear to make UC schools OOS attractive. Your affordable options are:

  1. in-state FL
  2. gap year and reapply to OOS which offer merit aid
  3. go to UC and apply and gamble on maybe (big maybe) landing an ROTC scholarship
12

To be honest I guess it is more of an irrational crush for the UCs. I didn’t have much guidance going into my college search which lead to my terrible idea of only applying OOS to the UCs. I regret that and wish I applied to some other Cali state schools that would be much more inclined to offer scholarships. I still would rather do that than stay in Florida.

13

Can u take a gap year, work to save money, and reapply next year to CA schools (or other away schools) which offer merit money? The best chance for merit money is as an entering freshman. Besides USC, some other CA merit money schools: Pepperdine (gorgeous Malibu setting), Occidental, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara. Many of the CTCL LACs also give generous merit money, including University of Puget Sound which gets a lot of job recruiting traffic from Seattle area tech firms.

FYI
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/

If I was in your shoes, I would go to UF. It’s a good school.

14

You’ve had this in your head for a long time, and now it feels like a huge disappointment. I’m sorry about that.

If your parents were multi-millionaires and could afford it with no loans, I would have reservations about you going out to California and blowing $200K+ for an undergraduate degree when you could have one for FREE from an excellent university like UF. I would rather your parents cut you a check for $200K (in our hypothetical universe).

All of your hard work in high school is definitely NOT wasted at UF. Did you apply for honors college? Can you stick a very high GPA? Then you can have your pick of jobs when you graduate, and work your way out to California.

Hang in there and I’m impressed that you asked this question.

15

Keep in mind that u don’t have to go to college in CA to get a job & live in CA. My brother graduated from an non-elite co-op school on the East Coast, had a great internship w an East Coast company, got recruited and hired by Apple’s Cuppertino headquarters, and moved to CA.

Opportunities are what you make of them. There are MANY paths to achieving a goal. Borrowing $100k to go to a UC over UF is like going into deep debt to buy a Mercedes when all you really need is transportation.

16

Using LinkedIn, I can see it has 247,000 UF Alumni. Almost 6,000 live in the San Francisco Bay Area (major employers are Google, Apple, Intel, Cisco, and…UC Berkeley), another 3,600 live in LA (major employers are UCLA, USC, SpaceX, Northrop, Amgen…). Gators in the San Diego area (another 1,500) work for Qualcomm, etc…

Go to UF with no regrets. If you want to work in California, you’ll find it’s far easier to make the move, when you don’t have to worry about debt.