<p>OP –
Go to BC. No one here will be able to convince you otherwise because you refuse to listen. You made this board for moral support because you’ve already decided to take on this burden. Good for you, just friggin go and stop whining.</p>
<p>Holy crap I just looked at Boston college’s tuition and room and board price- $49,500 not including books/personal. I don’t know soccerdude, I don’t know.</p>
<p>to put it in perspective, BC would have cost my about 10k more PER YEAR than one of my state schools. thankfully, i also have merit awards elsewhere and have FINANCIAL BACKUP SCHOOLS. i instantly knew it wasnt worth it.</p>
<p>FYI, nobody at my school knew about BC. even BU was more well known (since many apply there as a safety). its not worth ruining your life over. try to transfer if you REALLY want to go</p>
<p>Surely you have other choices besides St John’s and BC! If you don’t, please get some additional apps in NOW! </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I spent several years as an HR director for a large international and hired many MBA’s. I can’t recall where any of them got their undergrad degree. My advice is to focus on the quality and recognition of the grad program instead. Many Harvard MBA’s started at lesser known schools.</p>
<p>I could understand going into debt for Harvard. But BC is just not at that level. It’s one of those pretty good schools–not amazing, but pretty good. Only worth the money if you HAVE the money. There’s another option, too–how about going to the cheap school for two years, then transferring? That way you graduate with half the debt.</p>
<p>I know two ivy grads who are working as retail sales clerks.</p>
<p>I know people who never went to college who would laugh at an annual salary below $200k.</p>
<p>In the end, who you are, and random luck, determine much more than where (or if) you went to college.</p>
<p>If you have the makings of a CFO, you can get there from Never-heard-of-it-U just as fast as from BC.</p>
<p>this op has been accepted into a number of colleges some of
which provide very good need based aid. He apparently has
pretty much a full ride from St John’s. Given the difficult situations
so many apps find themselves in, he’s being pretty ridiculous,
“Why can’t I go to BC? Boo Hoo Hoo.” Because they didn’t give
you enough money. Move on.</p>
<p>Why do you think you will make twice as much out of BC than another college?</p>
<p>We all like to think that we are supermen and will succeed - but a custionary note:</p>
<p>Nationwide the 6 year graduation rate of only 60%. 40% of those who start college (and take on debt) will NOT have a degree in 6 years. How do you pay off the debt then?</p>
<p>What happened to parents saving for college? Nobody seems to talk about that.</p>
<p>This is what college board had to say for my debt. So there all you “GO TO A COMMUNITY COLLEGE INSTEAD OF YOUR DREAM SCHOOL BECAUSE IT’S CHEAPER” people :)</p>
<p>"Are Your Projected Student Loan Payments “Manageable”?</p>
<p>Is your projected monthly payment of $ 921 manageable in relation to your estimated starting salary of $ 60000 when you graduate from college? There is no single, easy answer to this question, but some advisers suggest that your monthly student loan repayments should not exceed 10-15 percent of your first year starting income. If student loan repayments exceed 15 percent of your starting income, they could be burdensome and you may experience difficulty meeting your student loan repayments and other expenses. You estimated that your starting income could be approximately: $60000 per year, or $ 5000 per month in today’s dollars. You also indicated that you expect to receive your degree in 2014, in about 5 years. Assuming starting incomes increase by 3 percent per year between now and 2014, we estimate your starting income could be approximately $5796 per month. Based on this information, your estimated montly student loan repayments $ 921 would represent about 16 percent of your projected monthly income $ 5796."</p>
<p>Did you calculate that the loans will be defered for four years?, collegeboard calculator doesn’t automatically do that or it can’t do that. It is significantly more. The amount you have to pay in interest can double.</p>
<p>im taking out a parent PLUS loan how is that deferred for four years?</p>
<p>I’m not at all sure where College Board is getting its numbers if it is advising college grads to expect a 60K starting salary, since only a couple of fields come in that high, and they are all engineering fields.</p>
<p>This is from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the winter 2008 issue Salary Survey:</p>
<p>Top Five Starting Salary Offers</p>
<p>National Averages, Winter 2008 </p>
<p>Discipline Average Salary</p>
<p>Chemical Engineering $63,749</p>
<p>Computer Science $58,377</p>
<p>Electrical Engineering $56,512</p>
<p>Mechanical Engineering $56,429</p>
<p>Civil Engineering $49,427</p>
<p>This is a question for all of the students contemplating taking on excessive debt: do you have any real idea what it means to be in a position to HAVE to pay 1000 dollars a month for loan payments that do NOT include a car or a house or savings for your future?</p>
<p>You should be thinking about what else you will NOT be able to do with this projected pay-back schedule. Life gets boring and stressful when there is no money whatever for enjoyable things.</p>
<p>“If student loan repayments exceed 15 percent of your starting income, they could be burdensome and you may experience difficulty meeting your student loan repayments and other expenses.”</p>
<p>Their calculated 16% is indeed more than 15%.</p>
<p>“Assuming starting incomes increase by 3 percent per year between now and 2014, we estimate your starting income could be approximately $5796 per month.”</p>
<p>Assuming a 3% increase per annum for the next five years is risky. How long will this recession last? How deep will it be? Will you even graduate with the major that you are currently planning on?</p>
<p>It is clear to me that you really, really, want the expensive school. You want it so bad you can taste it. You are doing everything within your power to demonstrate to yourself, and to others, that it really isn’t un-affordable. That you are struggling so hard to demonstrate this to yourself and to us, makes me wonder if deep in your heart you truly believe that it isn’t affordable.</p>
<p>Yes, you can make it possible. You can live on rice and beans. You can work three part-time jobs during the school year, and 80 hour weeks during the summer. You can ride a bike to work after you graduate, and you can share an apartment with five other people to make your rent affordable. But, do you want to live like that? Maybe this college is worth that much to you. Maybe it isn’t.</p>
<p>More reading that may help you decide is at [Project</a> on Student Debt: Home](<a href=“http://projectonstudentdebt.org/]Project”>http://projectonstudentdebt.org/)</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best.</p>
<p>it also gets stressful when you come out with a 30k salary and it takes 20 years to get a decent salary.</p>
<p>And BC stats show the average starting entry salary to be around 65k for my major so 60k is not really out of the question…</p>
<p>Are you or your parents gone to be paying for the loans monthly while your in college, (or at least the interest). If you don’t then the interest starts compounding yearly, called capitalizing, defering your loan can inrease the loan principle significantly. </p>
<p>Search for a loan deferment caluclator. You would defer for 48 months for freshman year, and so forth.</p>
<p>when i am in college my parents will pay for the interest. The rest of the loans will be on my shoulders after, so i figure if its like 15,000 a year, i can get that down to about 13,000 working and not be in quite too much debt. Hopefully will get an MBA in 4 years because of AP’s and such., so 4 * 13,000 isnt that bad…</p>
<p>I am not understanding what career you are looking at that has an average starting salary of $65,000. Do you want to be an investment banker?
I found this on the BC site but the salary ranges vary widely, most likely due to location which will impact the cost of living, which will impact how much you can afford to pay each month on your loans.
<a href=“http://www.bc.edu/offices/careers/meta-elements/pdf/Class_of_2007_Career.pdf[/url]”>http://www.bc.edu/offices/careers/meta-elements/pdf/Class_of_2007_Career.pdf</a></p>
<p>samdude, please go to the library ASAP and borrow “The Millionaire Next Door.” Read it; you can easily read it in an evening.</p>
<p>After you’ve read it, you’ll have more information to help you make this decision.</p>
<p>ok thanks for all the great advice! Ironically, my tough decision just got tougher :p</p>