@reformedman I mean if you call up RPI you can ask if they can give your son more loans. They wouldn’t be federal though, they’d be from the school so the interest rates would be similar to PLUS loans. You can bring the 5.5k up to 10k or 12k - but your son can borrow up to the cost of attendance (probably a terrible idea). They may also even offer more federal loan offers which have lower interest rates. Also maybe ask for more scholarship money if you got better offers, they might budge (don’t use a state school as a comparison, use a comparable private school or high end public engineering school like UC or GT). Also cut out the Misc fees and halve the textbook costs, I rent all my textbooks and I spend only a few hundred a semester. My parents also buy my clothes so I don’t exactly get factoring in $1,500 more for that… you’re gonna need clothes at any school lol. Also maybe have your son apply for work study or get a part time job, I got one and work part time so that’s $2000 off the bill also. RPI offers on-campus work separate from work study that pays pretty well. A summer job can also cut an additional 2k off the bill. I worked all of senior year and summer so that was a lot.
So there’s about $12,000 off if your son is willing to take out more loans and work. Not sure about the additional $13,000 though… you can cut that cost basically in half for sophomore year and up if they join Greek life since housing/food is at least half the price of living and eating on campus. After sophomore year you don’t have to live on-campus either so it’ll be even cheaper than that.
The extra $13,000 is a lot and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. Again, the excess can be cut probably to like $5,000 after the first year, but 13k is a lot of money. Parent PLUS is best if you want to borrow as a parent since you get federal protections, don’t have to pay until after he graduates, and there are lower interest rates. Given the current situation you’d need around 30k which is a little more than 3k a year for 10 years.
Also remember it’s not all due at once, you can get a payment plan if that somehow makes it more affordable even though it’s the same amount. It would be around $700 a month if you wanna pay from June-December for the Fall and around $1000 for the spring for $10,000 for the year.
Before doing anything call and beg for more money. Also please remember that this is a lot of money you’re talking about as you probably know. It’s largely a personal decision whether to make this kind of investment or not and sometimes it may not even be worth it.