<p>I'm deciding between pretty cool schools: UC Berkeley, Boston College (offered Honors A&S), U of Washington, U of San Diego, UCLA, and UCSD.</p>
<p>I'm from Washington ... U of Wash. would leave me with $0 debt.
............................... ... Berkeley/UCs would put me around $100k in debt.
............................... ... Boston College = same debt as UCs.
............................... ... U of San Diego = $0 debt ($25k scholarship).</p>
<p>These schools are very different. I'm visiting BC and UCB soon. Those are my top 2 choices. I know my choice depends on how much I like the school, but am I making a very irresponsible decision by choosing an expensive school?</p>
<p>You didn’t give us enough info to say if it is irresponsible or not. If your parents are very wealthy and are paying for the whole thing and are ok with it- then no, you aren’t being irresponsible and say a big thank you and give them a hug. if you are asking if you should go $100,000 into debt- that is a totally different question. I can’t think of any undergrad that is worth that.</p>
<p>The only debt you can take on by yourself is the federal loans ($5,500 freshman year, $6,500 sophomore year, $7,500 junior year, and $7,500 senior year for a whopping total of $27,000) and the Perkins loans if the institution offers them. To accumulate the type of debt you are contemplating, someone will have to co-sign for it. That means that the person agrees to pay off your debt if anything happens to you (death, disability, unemployment, etc.). And, it means that your co-signer has to re-qualify for a loan every year. If the banks think that person has maxed out, you won’t get another loan. Ask your parents about this. Are they ready, willing, and able to co-sign every year for all four years? Are they in strong enough financial shape to keep borrowing this kind of money for those years? They might want to talk to their bank about it.</p>
<p>The UCs and BC are great, but not worth the difference in cost. Choose between UW and USD.</p>
<p>tjmom: My parents would only be able to pay a certain amount. $38k-ish/year (+/- $5k). And yes, I was basically asking if $100k debt was worth it.</p>
<p>rachelm57: I want to major in something neuroscience/biochem/math/business-related. It’s likely I’ll be going to grad school after graduating in 4 years.</p>
<p>I think I’ve earned the right to drive a Lexus, but I drive a Hyundai, and it gets me where I need to go. </p>
<p>Many, many students have the grades and EC’s to get into expensive schools. Not all of them have the money. It’s a fact of life, hard to take for kids who have grown up fairly affluent, since this might be the first time they want something that they cannot have. It hurts, but you learn to make the most of it.</p>
<p>If you and/or your parents end up with $100K + interest for your undergrad, how do you anticipate paying for graduate school? And what if you can’t get into grad school? What kind of job can you get to pay off that huge a debt?</p>
Do you also feel comfortable with $100k in debt after graduation? Do you understand just what $100,000 PLUS interest means to your future? No? Well think about it like this, you’ll probably have to move back immediately after graduation because the loan payments will crush you. Want to go out to eat? Well you have to pay $900 a month and you don’t make nearly enough to pay back that debt since you couldn’t afford to move to an area with better job prospects. What if you get laid off? You still have to pay the loans, so you need to make sure that during your 20s and 30s you’re never fired, or else you might have serious difficulty paying for food/medical insurance/ any other life expenses. </p>
<p>University of Washington is an EXCELLENT school, one of the best public schools in the country. University of San Diego is also quite good, and has far better weather than Boston College. You’re not sacrificing anything by choosing those schools over Berkeley or BC. In fact you’d be gaining quite a bit.</p>
<p>University of Washington is a fine school. Were you directly admitted into any major? Math at Washington has minimally higher major declaration requirements than just being in good academic standing, but biology majors have competitive admission. Math is probably better anyway for job prospects at either the bachelor’s or PhD level.</p>
<p>100K in debt will make you very, very uncomfortable. No undergraduate school in the world is worth that much. You deserve to take pleasure in your accomplishments and no one can take that away from you. But please don’t put yourself in that much debt to attend a mere school.</p>
<p>I’m often not opposed to a lot of borrowing if the opportunity is right. However, in your case, I would have to agree that given the fabulous opportunities at University of Washington that will leave you with zero debt, and will provide you access, if you seek it out and do well, to the fantastic research opportunities that you will need to get access to top graduate schools, I can’t fathom why you would borrow money to attend either a private college that’s not especially well known in your fields of interest, or another large bureaucratic flagship university in a nearby state that offers you no real advantages over your own state. </p>
<p>I don’t know enough about University of San Diego to compare it to Washington, but I would pick Washington over UCs or BC for sure. Those more expensive opportunities are not better opportunities, and you would be spending the extra money on nothing special.</p>
<p>This is something you need to discuss with your parents. Can they afford taking on a $100K in debt because they are the ones that are likely to have to take the loans, not you. Doubtful anyone is going ot lend you $25K a year. You get the Staffords and the Perkins. The rest are PLUS and privates, as a rule, and those are on your parent’s or other adult who has a credit history who will sign for you and take full responsibility for the loans if you die, disable, drop out or default. Big obligation. </p>
<p>Sometimes parents go too far and put themselves on the financial limb for their kids, and if you think your parents are in that situation, it would be a great thing if you spare them this.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine anything the UCs would offer you as an undergrad that is better than what you could get at UW, let alone $100K better. I would not advise going into $100K of debt to impress your HS friends with where you are going to college, since future grad schools or employers will not see the UCs as better than UW.
<p>Husband and I both had significant undergrad student loan debt. It meant that we drove old cars, didn’t travel, and didn’t buy a home until our daughter was in kindergarten. Major item in our budget and impact on our lives for 15 years after we graduated. </p>
<p>We got great educations and loved our undergrad experiences, but neither of us had ANY idea when we began college what that amount of debt would mean.</p>
<p>Berkeley/UCs would put me around $100k in debt.</p>
<p>It sounds like the debt would be YOURS. Are your parents paying the other $25k per year? Is that their budget for you? </p>
<p>If you went to USD, the scholarship pays half and your parents pay half??</p>
<p>*Parents say “choose what’s best for you.” How do I decide? $0-100k in debt after grad
*</p>
<p>Sorry to be harsh, but if that’s really what your parents said, then they really don’t know what’s best for you. Any parent that isn’t waving the biggest red flag at the possibility of their child running up $50k-100k in debt doesn’t seem (to me) to advising their child well.</p>
<p>*Quote:
I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying no to them. I earned it after all, right?
*</p>
<p>Oh gosh…if you’re going to think that way, you’re going to find yourself a future victim to all kinds of things that you think you “earned.”</p>
<p>What is your future career and how much do you think you’ll be earning upon graduation?</p>
<p>OK… maybe I’ll go to UW @barrk123. I don’t want to be close to home. I don’t know what I want.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids My parents will be paying more than $25k/year. Somewhere in the mid $30ks like I said. As for my career, I hope to be a physician like both my parents. It’s a loong shot, but there are ways to get there.</p>
<p>Oh golly, then all the more reason to choose the cheap university. Save your debt (and as much of your parents’ money as possible) to pay for Med School.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about being close to home. Once you are living on campus, it doesn’t matter if home is 20 miles or 200 miles. It is a different world. Like my friend said to her kid who is attending college 20 minutes from home “I promise I won’t come over and follow you around campus!”.
U.Washington is a beautiful campus with great academics. What more do you need???</p>