<<<
As I’ve said, I have several engineers working for me with that kind of undergraduate debt and they seem to be leading pretty happy lives and are not drowning in debt. Of course, that’s about their annual salary, but living indoors in Boston is pretty expensive.
<<<
If this OP was going to be an eng’g major and walk into a $85k+ per year job upon graduation, then $50k of debt may be fine. I’m not sure that you truly know the annoyances your young engineers are facing with their $75kish debt…or maybe they have well-paid partners that help soften the blow.
The payments on that $75k of debt would be like two extra car payments every month for 10 years…in addition to their real car payment. Not many folks can just smile and be happy about that for 10 long years. Lol
But again, this isn’t an eng’g major. This student will probably be a bio or Chem major as premed. Any $75k of debt will be $125k+ by the time he’s out of med school…
And…once he’s doing his residency at a modest salary of about $60k per year, how do you think he’s going to manage THOSE payments PLUS his $300k med school payments. Sure, he can delay it all until after residency, but what will $425k of debt look like after another 3-5 years???
I think at this point, even you’d be a little debt adverse.