<p>I will be taking out a student loan of around 100k</p>
<p>I am a bit worried about how I am going to pay it off later.</p>
<p>I am a CS major so its not like I'm entering a field with low prospects.
I will probably get an entry level job earning 55-65k and I'll most likely be single for a bit too so it will be a little easier paying things off. </p>
<p>In the long run however, I'm looking to get rid of the loan in 5years or less IDEALLY.</p>
<p>Any help, ideas, tips? I'm just taking a look at what the future holds for me. </p>
<p>If your sons/daughters have been through/ are going through something similar then maybe their situations would help me get a better grasp of what will happen later on.</p>
<p>$100,000 at 8 % will be around $1200 a month in loan payments every month for 10 years. Over $2,000 a month if you are paying it over 5 years.</p>
<p>And that is if you pay the interest as you go along. If you are deferring the interest then your loan will have grown to over $120,000 by the time you graduate. That will mean payments of around $1450 a month every month for 10 years, or over $2400 a month for 5 years.</p>
<p>I would never allow my kids to take out that much debt for undergrad. It is a crippling amount of debt to start life with.</p>
<p>Personally I think that is WAY too much debt to amass for undergraduate school. Your loan payments will be in excess of $1000 a month for 10 years. </p>
<p>My parents are the cosigners and they said they would help me when paying the loans but i want to burden my parents as less as possible. </p>
<p>let me say that the amount of loan that i have taken right now is 45k for my first year, and from next year onward texas will give me in-state tuition so the money i will need to take out will be like half, around 23k per year. </p>
<p>I am however, doing well in school, I got 3 As, 1 B+, and a C my first semester so thats a 3.3 GPA. So its not like im wasting myself away at college either.</p>
<p>Holy cow. Really? $45,000 in loans for one year - that is horrifying. </p>
<p>How will you get in state tuition? Have your parents moved to Texas? it is quite hard for an OOS student to get their residency changed when they are already in college.</p>
<p>no we have found ways to get the residency changed. </p>
<p>Texas is pretty lenient on those kinds of things in the first place. </p>
<p>but yeah…nearly 45k in loans for one year. </p>
<p>the next few years would be SIGNIFICANTLY less per year but still would stack haha. </p>
<p>Idk what to do. I can’t NOT go to college, i want my computer science degree!
Everything is all said and done now, there would be no point in switching schools or anything like that because its too late. </p>
<p>All i can do is just soften the blow i guess.
Maybe I just have to invent the next big Facebook-type phenomenon…</p>
<p>It is not too late, and you can get your CS degree for less than 45k a year, and if you continue on your current financial trajectory you are an idiot.</p>
<p>Speaking as a fellow idiot, though I’ll have half as much debt as you and I am still financially crippled.</p>
<p>Could you tell me a bit more about this? UT Austin would be an attractive CS/Math destination for my son, but they’ve dropped merit aid, and are now targeting aid towards building diversity. Unfortunately, that leaves them a bit overpriced vs. similar quality schools for OOS families.</p>
<p>Are there ways for students to establish their own residency? Other possibilities?</p>
<p>I am also curious about this question. I reviewed the Texas residency questionnaire and it doesn’t seem like they let non-residents change their status and pay in-state tuition after the first year unless there’s some family change (like your family moved to Texas and intend to live there). The Texas Administrative Code says that a Texas resident for IS tuition purposes either graduated from high school in Texas and lived in Texas for 3 years before they graduated; or who moved to Texas at least a year before they enrolled in college. If you’re a dependent student, your parents have to have moved to Texas a year before you began college.</p>
<p>It does say that a domicile is presumed if 12 months before you enroll at the college you own real property or a business in Texas, but again with the dependent rules - you, as the parent, would have to purchase property in Texas.</p>
<p>Regardless of all that, borrowing over $100K in debt is ridiculous for undergrad. Assuming $45K the first year and $23K the last three years (assuming that you are somehow able to get in-state tuition; I’m not sure I believe you in that there is “leniency” having reviewed the code, but whatever), that’s $114K. All of that can’t be Stafford loans, so going with an average interest rate of 8%, there is no way you will be able to pay that off in 5 years. You’ll be lucky if you pay it in 10.</p>
<p>Even assuming that you do make a $60K/year salary your first year out (and assuming that you get a job within 6 months of graduating), after taxes it’ll probably be around $46K. Maybe ~$3,850/month. To try to pay off $114K in 5 years gives you a monthly loan payment of $2311. That is going to almost completely wipe out your monthly salary. It will be very difficult to live on a bit over $1500 a month, which is what you are left with, unless you live at home with your parents. It’s unrealistic to expect to pay off $114K in 5 years unless you’re making like twice what you project, and even with that much, the monthly payments will be a huge harsh on your lifestyle.</p>
<p>But shoot, even with a 10 year repayment plan, that’s still almost $1400 a month. So that means that you’ll probably be living on about $2400 a month after your loan payments. I make about that much a month as a graduate student and let me tell you, it is not pleasant.</p>
<p>You can still finish your computer science degree without racking up that much debt. You could always transfer to a more affordable in-state public college.</p>
<p>I’d wouldn’t recommend taking out 100k in loans even if I can GUARANTEE 4 things:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Graduate with at least a 3.25 GPA (Challenging for most CS majors)</p></li>
<li><p>Learn more than the latest programming language/methodology/technology du jour, try to get comfortable with programming in more than one operating system/IDE (Windows, various flavors of unices(i.e. freebsd and debian), and Mac OSX), and get yourself used to the idea of constantly learning to keep up with the latest programming/methodology/technological trends because that’s what you’ll need to not only get ahead…but to avoid getting left behind. Try learning and mastering the theory alongside the practical aspects.</p></li>
<li><p>Develop good written/oral communication, economics/business, and social skills that will facilitate entry and continued career success. </p></li>
<li><p>Land internships with topflight computer software development/technology firms like Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc and land a full-time gig with them upon graduation.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Have a friend who works for one of those big computer tech companies making nearly $90k/year who’s still struggling after being 5 years out from school because of the combination of the undergrad loans(around half of what you anticipate borrowing), credit card debt, and not making sufficient headway in paying them off.</p>
<p>If he/she is not paying the interest while in school then the loan is going to balloon by the time repayment begins. $45k 1st year plus (if the instate deal happens) $23k for three years will have grown, at 8%, to over $140,000 at the end of 4 years. That’s $1700 a month in payments every month for 10 very long years. For an undergrad degree. That is just horrifying.</p>
<p>I hope this is an HONEST way of dealing with this. Even in Texas, you need to follow their residency requirements. Don’t assume that this is really going to happen until you have it in writing from the UT system.</p>
<p>AND if there is anything in your plan that is…well…sort of not really residency but a “way around fulfilling” the residency requirement…be advised that if you are found out, you run the risk of not only losing that “instate” tuition but also your enrollment at the school. Colleges are not in the business of supporting folks who are less than honest or gloss over the truth. Not saying you are doing this…but just a warning.</p>
<p>if looking in texas…look at UTD …if you can get even 1000K in merit from them…they give you instate tuition right away, otherwise do you have the grades/scores to qualify for merit at other schools?</p>
<p>$45,000 loan the first year? What is the interest rate and when do you start to repayment? </p>
<p>You are pretty smart as you are doing pretty well in the first semester. But using 100% loan to finance the entire expebnsive college education is something I would not do.</p>
<p>My son and all his friends (fellow CS majors) had jobs waiting for them right out of college that would make paying off this type of debt fairly painless. But they were all Stanford graduates with 3.8 and up GPA (top 10% of engineering grads). I am sure that played a significant role in the opportunities they got.
If you choose to stay in your expensive school, be sure to work very hard. GPA matters.</p>
<p>I had a talk with my parents this morning and they said that I had their full support if I put all my effort into getting good grades and finishing the degree which obviously I had the full intention of doing anyway. </p>
<p>Also another thing is, even if I transferred somewhere else next year, it would cost around the same per year as Texas in-state does and I would still need to take out loans! For example, lets say I went to VA Tech, it would be around 18k each year vs. Texas which is like 20k. </p>
<p>No matter where I go, I still face the same problem…</p>
<p>CC is really not an option for me because I’ve just been used to rigerous work that CC would be a joke and I feel like I would blow it off. All through high school I was in IB and now I’m at a Top 10 CS college, so I don’t know if going to CC would be the best for me. </p>
<p>It seems that no matter where else I go, I would still have to take out a loan to finish my education! </p>
<p>:( </p>
<p>Some of you have asked how I am getting the in-state residency,
Well, at the time of enrolling next year for the fall semester, I would have been in Texas for 12 months and My parents aren’t claiming me as a dependent on their taxes. Also, I will have been working a job for 10hrs a week for those 12months which would effectively establish domicile. We have talked this over with the Admissions office and they said it is fine. I don’t have anything in writing, but they said that there is nothing more that needs to be done to establish domicile. </p>
<p>SO</p>
<p>that puts me in a situation where I can’t even apply to VA Tech because then I would be an OOS student in my own home state lol. I would be limited to Texas schools. </p>
<p>and all of those schools cost around the same for me to attend so it seems this whole situation of a loan is inevitable.</p>
<p>Is there something im missing or that i overlooked in considering my alternate options?</p>
<p>Many students work in the state for 10 hours per week while attending college there. This will NOT make you an instate resident. Sorry but there is no way you can be supporting all of your living expenses on 10 hours per week of employment. To establish a domicile, you need to establish that YOU are supporting yourself as well. Please make sure this is the case for you. Get it IN WRITING. Don’t assume this will be the case.</p>
<p>You are really putting yourself into a difficult position. IMO, you need to go back to your home state and get in state tuition there. You have good grades, so transfer shouldn’t be a problem. With your anticipated amount of debt, you are really limitiing your future, including graduate school.</p>
<p>Yes but this is in addition to me being independant and filing my own taxes, I just stated the minimum amount that you had to work per week in order to establish domicile! We have talked with the admissions people and even looked it up online as well as talked it over with our CPA and talked to other people about it. </p>
<p>But the texas site is down for maintenance right now, so let me post a link to the requirements when I find it.</p>