<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>Ever since I knew about NYU's existence, it's been my dream school since then. It was so long ago I can't even remember. I applied for Early Decision, and I got in miraculously for Childhood and Special Ed, although I plan to switch to Psych or Applied Psych. The catch: I wasn't given any financial aid. I was given 64k in loans per year. </p>
<p>I live in Puerto Rico, and the economy here is worse than the US. Most people live off the corrupt government and only a third of people of working age are working. Things are terrible. My parents own a small business, but they lose money every year. They shield me from knowing how much they earn, but I found out that they together make around 180k, therefore totally ineligible for financial aid. Much of the money used is for my brother, who has autism and therefore requires more attention, and my sister's in a private school. I'm the only one in a public lab school, and therefore, I'm the one who receives the smallest end of the stick, even though I'm the eldest.</p>
<p>They have a bond with college money for the three of us, but it doesn't mature until I'll be in my senior year of college. That's when my sister will start her freshman year of college, and she has aspirations to going to NYU also for Film. And then my brother graduates the year after, and my brother needs the most money for the programs he will need for college. With the tuition costs rising tremendously every year. I'm applying to scholarships like crazy, but just thinking it's almost one in a million for me to get them, I have no idea what to to.</p>
<p>I'm personally really troubled because I don't know whether or not it's worth it for me to go to NYU because I will probably have to end up paying for my loans myself, and just tuition and board and all that, it's about 250k of debt. :$ What should I do?</p>
<p>No it is not. $250,000 in loans will cost you $3000 a month in repayment for at least 10 years.</p>
<p>Ask to be released from ED ASAP and start working on some RD applications. Keep in mind that it is highly unlikely that you will be eligible for need based aid. Talk to your parents about how much they realistically are wlilling to pay or bowrrowfor you to attend college. Make sure that you craft a list that has some affordable options. Be sure to have some schools that are academic and financial safeties</p>
<p>NYU and Financial Aid are mutually exclusive statements.</p>
<p>You cannot possibly go to NYU. Your parents would have to borrow ~$60K/year (you are limited to $5.5K yourself as a freshman). Go to the stickies at the top of this forum and look at the guaranteed merit aid.</p>
<p>You cannot pay-- and probably can’t even take out-- over a quarter of a million dollars in loans. Remember that tuition and fees go up every year and NYU COA is already $64K this year. It could easily be $70K by your senior year. You would not be able to make the payments (psychology majors don’t make a lot of money with just a Bachelor’s) and you can’t get out of those loans. (They can garnish wages, take people’s tax returns, etc.)</p>
<p>Your parents will not qualify for financial aid. When they signed your ED agreement, what was THEIR plan? You said they have money saved up for college, they have good income and are expecting their kids to attend college. What was their plan to pay for your college expenses? How much do they say they can pay? Unless your parents will take responsibility to pay for all the direct expenses (tuition + room + board), you have to ask to be released from the ED agreement. The federal loan you can take out is just for $5,500 and you will spend most of that on flights, books and personal expenses.</p>
<p>As far as other schools… At that income level, you basically either need your parents to pay for the entire thing or you need to look for merit scholarships to bridge the gap between what they will pay and what a specific school costs. As you’ve already figured out, most substantial scholarships come from schools themselves so it is very important to pick a school that gives scholarship money. (Not all schools have much money and some schools choose to give their money to help students who can’t afford it, as opposed to using the money to attract the students they want to attend.) There are a few state schools that give a lot of guaranteed aid to kids with certain test scores. There are state schools with COA for out-of-state students that are half of what NYU costs. But the likelihood that your parents will have to pay for a good portion of your college is very high. If they won’t, you need to re-asses your plans and maybe consider starting school in PR, saving some money (and taking out your annual loan limits and banking them) and transferring… but I’m getting ahead of us here. You need to find out what they will pay.</p>
<p>I am actually curious as to how transfer agreements w/ between Puerto Rico and the contientanl US. Puerto Rico is part of the US though not a state so is it treated like DC where you can go to some state universities schools in the continent as an IS student even though you live abroad?</p>
<p>this is not relevant to NYU not being an state school / pubic school at all, but the problem is that the cost of NYU is astronomical but the cost of attending out of state public unviersities is also very bad. i would check to see if you can better aid. $250 1/4 million is NOT viable. no bank is going to lend you the equivalent of a mortgage on a house in Ithaca to go to college so i wouldn’t lean too heavily on this even being an option. it’s not even about the loan payments, they just won’t give you the money at all!</p>
<p>DC Tag is only for DC residents, not for those from PR, Guam or any other US dependency. DC Tag is limited to $10K a year so, at some schools, it does not cover the full difference between instate and oos tuition.</p>
<p>I know, I was just wondering if other territories like PR had similar programs for their own regions. Apparently not, though it seems like a good idea because many of these areas are endowed with only a small handful of public / unstate universities!</p>
<p>Axand238, DC does not fund DC Tag. DC Tag was funded by Congress because UDC is such a weak school, sitting on some decent property, and they decided it was better to open up other schools to DC students and stop spending so much on UDC. This is not something that DC <em>did</em> because the cost of any district or state being able to give their students up to $10K a year for four years of undergrad is pretty prohibitive. It was a consolation prize. No other state or dependency has a program like this. And Puerto Rico has a NUMBER of universities throughout the island. Univ of Puerto Rico has 11 campuses, with over 60,000 students and graduation rates ranging to 53% and dates back over 100 years. UDC has just over 5,000 students, dates to 1977 and has a graduation rate of 15%. There’s no comparison!</p>
<p>on NYU’s website, they clearly say that you should not apply ED if you need aid…sorry, you absolutely must withdraw. You would be beyond foolish to attend. </p>
<p>With a hook, you could likely earn merit money from many mainland colleges. Get cracking’ on the apps.</p>
<p>Your parents aren’t likely going to cosign your loans (thank goodness!!!), so NYU is out.</p>
<p>Did you EVER have a conversation with your parents as to how much they WILL pay for college?</p>
<p>3.56 Unweighted GPA
1720 SAT (610 M, 580 CR, 530 W)
760 SAT II Spanish
Recommendation letters are both 9/10</p>
<p>*NYU, BU, American, UMass Amherst, UHartford, Lesley, Manhattan College
*</p>
<p>You’ve applied to a bunch of schools that aren’t going to be affordable.</p>
<p>Did you have your parents run the NPCs on schools’ websites? </p>
<p>did you only recently learn that your parents have a high income? You seem to have been expecting aid. </p>
<p>You need to talk to your parents about how much they’ll spend each year. Your brother may have autism but I highly doubt that “most of” your parents’ money goes to that. Millions of people have autistic kids and they don’t have that income…so they’re not spending THAT much on their child. </p>
<p>Once you have an amount that your parents WILL spend on your education, you can make a more reasonable list. Right now, unless your parents will pay, none of your schools are likely affordable.</p>
<p>No one should be allowed to mention NYU and " dream school" in the same sentence. 
My kids weren’t allowed to have dream schools.
Their dream was earning a degree, and all they needed was a good school to make that happen.
Which they did & with only Stafford loans (& a few Perkins)</p>
<p>probably a wise choice though it may sound harsh to young folks! the whole “dream school” mentality encourages a lot of people to push towards things that are impracticle/unaffordable and unnecessary. lots of people have “dream cars” or “dream houses” but no one thinks, “eh, I’ll live on the streets until I can afford a mansion in Boca Raton” or “I will walk three hours to work every day until I can get a Cadillac”. It’s nice to have dreams but chaining it to a specific brand of product (basically a college IS just a product/service) is a recipe for pain unless of course you are rich.</p>