<p>I was accepted to SCAD and am trying to lower my loan amount by finding scholarships and grants. I'm out of state, and for the rest of the year, I have been awarded about $1,300 in a state grant, along with scholarships and grants from SCAD adding up to about $8,000. </p>
<p>I'll need to take out about $27,000 for the rest of the year (SCAD works in quarters, so I pay by quarter, 3 quarters per year, so about 13,000 each quarter).</p>
<p>Anyway, the bottom line is that I'll owe about $40,000 in loans for each year, for four years...</p>
<p>That's a lot of debt, not including interest. </p>
<p>Does anyone know of any good options? Good scholarships, grants, etc.?</p>
<p>Thanks - much appreciated!</p>
<p>You cannot borrow that much money without a cosigner. Who is your cosigner? Will they continue to qualify every year? Or will the bank cut them off at some point?</p>
<p>$40,000 each year for four years comes to $160,000. How, exactly do you propose to pay down that kind of debt (assuming if course that you find a cosigner for it), on a design graduate’s salary?</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, you can’t afford this school.</p>
<p>The standard rule of thumb is to borrow no more for undergrad than you can reasonably expect to earn during the first year after you graduate. (No, that doesn’t mean you’d pay it all back that first year. What it means is that after you pay rent, food, etc., you’d have enough left over to be able to make reasonable payments towards the debt, so that it wouldn’t become a lifetime burden.)</p>
<p>So, for $160k in debt to be reasonable, you’d have to anticipate earning $160k/year when you get your degree! I could be wrong, but I’d guess you wouldn’t come close to that ever, much less your first year out of school. </p>
<p>Figure instead that you might earn $30k to 40k your first year out of school (and even that is a generous estimate). If you shared an apartment (with several roommates!) and never ate at restaurants or took vacations, and somehow managed to pay $1,000/month toward your debt (without ever missing a payment), it would take you at least 30 years to pay off the debt!</p>
<p>Is that affordable? </p>
<p>Since you can’t borrow that much without a cosigner, the far more likely scenario is that you would not be able to make even that minimum payment of $1,000/month, and you’d eventually default . . . at which point your cosigner (perhaps an elderly parent?) would be on the hook for the entire amount.</p>
<p>That $40,000 will grow to much more at the end of four years unless you are paying the interest every year as you go. $40,000 a year with an 8% interest rate will have grown to over $190,000 by the end of four years. The payments for that would be around $2300 a month every month for 10 long years, or $1500 a month for 20 years. That is way way way too much debt.</p>
<p>Sorry for the late response - but I decided that SCAD is just too expensive, unfortunately :(</p>