@twoinanddone yes, there are both coop and summerarch opportunities.
@CourtneyThurston That’s exactly right. It’s their choice. No need to disrespect it by calling it insane. You do not stand on higher ground.
And while where you went to school might not matter in your company, it certainly does in mine. I am a hiring manager and I tend to find better candidates at better schools. It’s not a completely perfect relationship. If you’re just average I won’t look at you anyway. If you excel at a school like NJIT or Rowan, you might get on my call list, but if you can excel at an exceptionally strong school like RPI with strong competition, it sends a strong signal that you are worth talking to.
Your hiring process sounds like you’re missing a lot of good candidates. Probably why the top companies all don’t have that kind of hiring process. Just saying.
Agree with @ClassicRockerDad - if parents are making a decision that they can afford, it’s just rude for anyone else to criticize them. A standout student can excel anywhere but a school like RPI does have more recognition and can open more doors than NJIT. The parents aren’t deciding based on the food or any frivolous reasons and it is there choice to borrow money if they want to. This is not a forum to mock people for their choices. We don’t know all the details of their financial situation. I may borrow money to buy a car because the interest rate is lower than what my investments are earning. Just because someone is borrowing money doesn’t mean they are financially irresponsible.
Some of us thought it was the student posting. It wasn’t exactly clear.
If the parents think $100,000 in loans is fine…then in my opinion, the PARENTS should take those loans out. They can get a Parent Plus Loan or a private loan in their name only.
My concern is consigning $100,000 in loans which they will be expecting their right now HS senior tombe able to start paying off in 4 years.
Sure…parent loans…with parent payback. Absolutely a parent decision.
But if it includes the burden of repayment for the student, I still vote no. Most HS students have no idea what a $1200 a month or more payment will mean when theynstart their first jobs.
OP made it clear that parents are taking the loan and they are not expecting the student to pay them back.
"Sure…parent loans…with parent payback. Absolutely a parent decision.
But if it includes the burden of repayment for the student, I still vote no."
100% this.
What about home equity loans. You should double check, but I believe that $100,000 of a home equity loan beyond purchase money is still deductible as long as you aren’t using AMT. Home equity rates still lower than student loan rates and probably don’t have huge origination fees.
Actually the OP said they would cosign loans for,their kid. If they cosign with their kid, their KID will be first in line to pay.
The OP wrote this in December:
So what happened? He was all set for NJIT with NO regrets…and that is very affordable.
Sure I can answer your personal question by pm if you’d like to coorespond in a discreet platform but I’m not sure that our personal affairs and reasons for a change of mind will add to this thread or bluntly; is anyone’s business.
Agree with @thumper1. If you had no resignations then, it seems a bit like you’re grasping to find excuses to spend more $ (like bad food, etc). NJIT is a fine school, as you once knew and accepted, and your kid will do great there.
This is also why, thankfully, I didn’t apply to more prestigious schools when I was a senior. I knew I was good enough to get in, but I also knew getting in was not going to change the financial reality which is that I could not afford to go. So I accepted the school that actually made sense – and I’m so glad I did.
I think NJIT is that school for your family.
Ok…back to the OPs question.
- Take the Dorect loan of $5500. That is a student loan that the student will take out in his name.
- Parent can take a Parent Plus Loan for the remaining costs up,to the cost of attendance. This is a parent loan. No student cosigner.
OR
- Parent can take a home equity line or loan which has less interest rate usually. This is a parent loan.
OR
- Parent can take out a private loan. No student cosigner,
OR
- Student can take out a private college loan which will need to be cosogned by a qualified cosigner...usually parents. In this case, it's a student loan....in the student name cosigner by the parents. The student would be the responsible party for repayment. If the student defaults, parent would be next in line to reply this loan.
Lots of options…I would look at 2-5 in that order.
Didn’t someone mention that the Parent plus loan has 5 origination points? I would switch 2 and 3.
@ClassicRockerDad what is 5 origination points? I always thought home equity line is a better option
Some people do NOT want to borrow against their homes to finance college.
Rowan’ s engineering programs have a very good reputation in the mid atlantic region and are ABET accredited. The main engineering facilities are new, also the business school, and there has been a big investment of $$ in the overall campus. Did your student visit and tour the engineering facilities and sit in on some classes? We toured and were very impressed, my youngest D applied and it was high on her list, but she ended up at Temple.
If you feel comfortable with the loans and repayment, RPI is certainly a wonderful school. Especially If you have younger kids who will need college funds down the road, be sure to consider how an additional $100k in loans could impact the family finances and your ability to borrow for them, if your son is not able to make the payments himself.
Origination points are a fee for taking the loan. Even the student direct loans have a 1% fee, so if you take out a $1000 they keep $10 and give you $990, you repay $1000. Doesn’t seem like a lot, but for 5%, they’d keep $50, for $10k they’d keep $500. Adds up quickly.
Check on the NJ loans. Yes, some bad publicity, but the biggest one was that the student had died and the parents didn’t want to repay. Well, that’s a benefit of Plus loans (and only after there was bad publicity on how mean and rotten the government was to try to recover borrowed money) but not one offered by most other types of loans. If you have a car loan and smash the car, you still pay the bank (unless you have insurance). I worked for a high risk lender and when I started I was shocked had how many bad loans (and stories) there were. But then I realized I only saw the bad loans, the loans with repayment issues, while 90% of all loans never crossed my desk. People borrowed, people repaid. It is the same with the NJ loans. Most repay without issue, but the ones that don’t get the publicity.
Actually the student was murdered and his mother is still being hounded for payments. There was a hearing in 2016 where some of the families who had taken these loans were allowed to testify. Their stories bear reading before deciding to go ahead with these loans. An example:
"Deborah Carney-Gumpper of East Brunswick told a story similar to that of others who testified:
Her son took out a NJ CLASS loan to help pay for college and, because he did not qualify on his own, her husband co-signed the loan. Almost immediately on graduating, he learned he would have to begin paying back more than $1,000 a month. He spent 18 months looking for a job, and then he was earning $35,000 a year. He paid as much as he could and requested a loan consolidation but that was denied. When he owed about $5,600, HESAA judged him in default and sent the loan to a lawyer for collection. The authority refused further contact, and the lawyer charged a $22,000 collection fee. Her son filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, is making payments through the court trustee, and is now forced to keep living at home."
If OP is absolutely sure that repayment will not be a problem fair enough, but be forewarned.
It’s difficult to answer without having a detailed financial picture. If you’re well enough off that you don’t really need the loan, there are a lot of cheap ways to access capital from 0% credit card offers to margin rates at discount brokers to the implied interest rates in futures.