Hey guys,
I was recently accepted as a transfer student to Northwestern. They gave me a financial aid packet that included about $7500 in loans. On top of that, my EFC will be about $16,400. My parents cannot afford to pay nearly $16,000 a year for me to attend school, which means I would have to take out more loans to cover that amount of money. Adding this together, I would be taking out at least $23,900 a school year in loans! Which, to me, is a crazy amount of money.
To shed some light on my background, I attend Florida Atlantic University. I know it is not a well-known or very prestigious university. Yet, during my senior year in HS I chose FAU over other well known LACS/Universities because they offered me the presidential scholarship, which left me with an excess of over $1000 in my pocket. I chose to transfer, because I was not happy with the the fact that I picked money over prestige (I know it is very superficial!).
If it helps, I am studying Computer Science. I want to study abroad and attend a decent grad school. I guess what I want to know is, is it worth it to take out the loans and attend Northwestern, or should I stick with the money and stay at FAU? If I stay at FAU I will study abroad and have money to go to grad school. Yet, if I go to Northwestern I will have a better chance of getting into a higher ranked grad school and a better chance at forming important connections.
I’m just at a lost and I don’t know what to do! Will sticking with FAU ruin my chances at getting into a good grad school???
Thank you so much for your help, I truly appreciate it!
Staying with FAU will not hurt your chances. Do well, get a great GPA.
It’s silly to take on that debt if you plan on going to grad school.
BTW…would your parents co-sign all that debt?
@mom2collegekids I think my parents will co-sign only if they think it’s what I really want to do. But, it will be my responsibility to work and pay it off.
Thank you for your advice. I agree the huge amount of debt is daunting and may not be worth it in the end. I just always had a dream of attending a well-known university and it sucks to have to let that dream go!
FAU has an ABET accredited CS program. If you are doing well enough at FAU to be accepted to Northwestern as a transfer, you can stay at FAU, be a top performer and get into a good grad school from there without taking on all that debt. That’s what I would have advised my son, who was a CS major, to do in your situation.
Are you seeking out research/faculty collaboration and internship opportunities at FAU? That’s very important.
Well, there are a couple ways to look at this. One you can stay and be debt free. Yes you can get into grad school. You will want to be a very strong student in your major and take on what you can in terms of research and/or projects with profs and even with other students. You could apply for REU experiences for summer. You should be consulting with profs or a dept adviser for guidance. I assume you are talking a MS, but if you are considering PhD research will be even more important.
For NU you should realize that you can probably get placement in pretty good jobs and it may not be necessary to get an MS. In industry BS and MS holders are not necessarily distinguished from each other in jobs. Sometimes just a couple years experience and they are both considered for filling the same job. There are some jobs that it will be different from, more research or scientist positions. So just having recruiting from top companies may be the NU edge. Also, whichever college to decide, employers often do pay for MS.
About the cost of NU, I think they are offering you a good deal, your EFC + your student loan.Did you expect something more because that is about as good as it gets. Are you a Jr transfer so this is just 2 years? Are pleae clarify why you are having to borrow so much extra each year. Your parents are not willing to put anything toward your college? Also you can work summers and NU students should be up for some very good paying internships so at least after Jr year you could probably get something.
You may want to do a little research on study abroad opportunities at NU. Do you have a location you have in mind? Will classes transfer to NU? My daughter just finished her study abroad experience (she attends UIUC) and there are many factors to consider based upon your wants and needs.
If you want to study abroad, why pay NU tuition when it is most likely you can be at the same school abroad for FAU tuition? Do you think having ‘NU’ on your diploma is going to be worth basically $45k?
NU doesn’t make you pay it’s own tuition when you study abroad. You do pay a couple grand admin fee.
I don’t think study abroad should be a make or break issue. I would think the thing to do if you transfer would be to give it up to get the superior NU offerings. Too bad abroad wasn’t done sophomore year when you can use it for a bunch of gen eds. I’m not sure that it is easy to meet graduation credit requirements for transfers if you study abroad. Grad credit reqs for transfers, dept credit reqs for the major --all difficult if you are a Jr transfer. Maybe if you can do one quarter abroad it can work. If sophomore transfer then no problem, however.
Did you appeal your aid? I appealed and they were very generous.
@BrownParent I am assuming that I will have to borrow that much extra, because I wouldn’t want my parents to have to sacrifice and cut back on so many aspects of their life just to send me to Northwestern.
I would be transferring in as a Sophomore, which means that I’d have to take out loans for 3 years! Every year the tuition, fees, and room and board at Northwestern are increasing. For the 2013-2014 school year it was just under $60,000 and now for the 2015-2016 school year the total cost of attendance is close to $70K! If I choose Northwestern, I am afraid to see the amount of money I will have to borrow from the government in order to meet the mounting prices.
Studying abroad is very important to me, but like BrownParent said, it isn’t a make or break issue. It is something that I am willing to give up if needed. I would want to study in Spain, because I have taken so many years of spanish already!
At FAU, I would graduate early, because in HS I took so many APs and passed the exams with either a 4/5, and that granted me multiple credit hours. So, i’m looking at a graduation date in 2017 if I stay at FAU. The thing is, the advising system at FAU is horrible, but I cannot blame advising on my lack of awareness. I most definitely need to do more research on the type of research oppurtunites that FAU has to offer. I was just so determined to get out of there freshmen year that I forgot to enjoy it.
@CaliCash I did not appeal my aid yet, because I just received my packet. But, appealing is something that I will try. Yet, from past experiences, I know not to get my hopes up on universities giving me more money.
Thank you guys so much for your help. It is very enlightening to gain opinions from people who do not know you, because you can always count on the honesty of strangers!
Have you met with the study abroad coordinator at FAU yet? You should do that.
As for the state of advising at FAU, that is something that can be lousy anywhere - even at more expensive universities. In the end, it is the student’s responsibility to read the catalogue and determine whether or not they are on track to meet the graduation requirements. Make yourself a spreadsheet, and check off what you have covered so far, and what is missing. Then take your own worksheet with you when you meet with your advisor to double-check everything. You should look through your student account, and see if there is a running “Degree Audit”. If there is, that will help you find out what courses you need to take.
The level of debt that you and your family would need to take on for Northwestern is excessive. What you would save by graduating from FAU would pay for most of an MS program if you decide you want one.
I’d appeal aid to NU before deciding because they tend to be really good on giving extra money on appeals if you actually need it. If you can get good aid and grades at NU, it’ll probably help you get into a good grad school. If you want to study abroad this year/next year though it may be kind of stupid to transfer if you’re not going to take full advantage of NU and spend the year somewhere else anyways, considering you already “lost” a year being at another school. NU’s an awesome school-- if you like it really want it transfer you should but if you just want to go there for the name then there’s no real point in transferring.
I don’t know what basis there is for an appeal, no special circumstances were mentioned.
While I think a NU degree is worth some debt, and I think a CS major (my dd was one) can handle some, assuming you don’t switch can manage some debt. However if you parents are not able or willing to help you with school AT ALL, which is what you seem to be saying, then it isn’t is too much debt imo. I 'm not sure why you even applied given that factor.
You yourself cannot borrow that much from ‘the govt’ the only loans you can take as a student are you federal direct and you are already taking the maximum. You parents would have to take the rest as Parent Plus in their name only if you want the loan to be from ‘the govt’. Otherwise they will have to qualify each year for a private or cosigned loan.
If you look at it like paying for grad school after FAU vs not needing grad school at least right away at NU then you are actually saving money going to NU. Going to get a MS means that you are likely losing 180k+ in salary over two years plus paying the cost of grad school. In many cases it doesn’t pay off as a grad from a top uni like NU will have better opportunities. After working for a bit you can save the money for grad school or get an employer sponsored MS. You will have a better idea after working of which sort of MS you want, if you want to get more into machine learning vs programming languages development for instance.
I do not think there is any issue with having been at FAU one year and you should be able to do a quarter or two abroad at NU as a sophomore transfer and it will also save you money over NU tuition. However as a CS major you can’t really take that much time abroad. My dd did a semester abroad as a senior but she was a math-cs major and she did Budapest semesters abroad in Math taking some advanced topics. She didn’t do it for the Hungarian Language she had to take, she chose it because it had strong coursework for her major and something that grad schools thought well of too, it turned out.