<p>Hello all,</p>
<p>My parents have saved up $100,000 for college thus far, and are encouraging me to go to a State school so that I would only have to take out loans for Grad School. So:</p>
<p>What is the average cost of grad school?
I'm not uber fond of many of the State schools, but quite fond of Boston College. If my parents do not qualify for financial aid, are loans my only route to paying for it all if I went to a private school for undergrad?</p>
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What is the average cost of grad school?
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What's the average cost of undergraduate school? If you can't answer that one, you can't answer the one you posed. Too many variables.</p>
<p>The usual option to taking out loans to fill the gap between FA and what your parents agree to pay is to go to a school that offers scholarships on some sort of merit basis (academics, community service, athletic, artistic, service academies), and which awards you one of those scholarships. </p>
<p>There are two schools that I know of that award full scholarships to every student they accept: Cooper Union in NY and Olin in Massachusetts.</p>
<p>And you can apply for outside merit scholarships, for which need is not a criteria. The ones that award big money are highly competitive. The ones that are not highly competitive tend to be very small and local.</p>
<p>It really depends on the kind of grad school...law school, med school and business school typically, except for very exceptional students, expect the student to pay full tuition and pay back when they make $$$$ on graduation. If you're a brilliant academic pursuing a PhD at a top institution, you might expect to get grants and a teaching stipend. Usually the tuition is posted on the website just like undergrad tuition is. Many graduate students are not considered dependant on their parents, so that is another consideration.</p>
<p>I think your parent's advice is good if you will not otherwise qualify for FA and you can get into a desirable state school. It is a very hard decision if you like BC so much!</p>