I got accepted as a 2nd-year transfer student to the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, which is awesome!!!. Currently, I am an international affairs major at Georgia Tech (it’s more known for engineering, but the program isn’t too terrible). However, if I went to Georgetown, I would graduate with around $55,000 in student loans. I plan to go into either consulting or cybersecurity/defense policy after graduation, and don’t plan to go to grad school until at least 6 or 7 years after getting my bachelor’s.
The question is, is $55,000 in debt for Georgetown worth giving up graduating from Georgia Tech with no debt (I’m an in-state student) and a really high G.P.A.? How good is Georgetown really at job placement when compared to GT? Help from former graduates would be appreciated.
To get to $55K in loans your parents would have to cosign. Are they willing to do that? I’m not sure I would feel comfortable with that level of debt either, especially compared to 0.
@HRSMom that’s after the “expected student contribution” so the amount i can pay during the summers…but i am trying to see if I could RA or anything like that. Do you think $55,000 in debt is a manageable amount on top of a frugal lifestyle? Or do you think I’d be eating ramen till I die to pay that off? @PurpleTitan @“Erin’s Dad” what do you think an okay amount of debt is?
See what the payments will be, in school and after. You may not be able to do grad school while paying (practically I mean). If this is a no go, then stay where you are.
2). How much will you make Summer’s as an intern, and then after graduation. Look at that against the payment and see how long it will reasonably take to pay. I had way more. It took 14 years. But they were not ramen type years. I still bought a house.
Work the numbers. Otherwise the anxiety will overwhelm you:)
I did a quick calculator on line. If none of your loans are subsidized, at 6.29%, for 10 years, the pmt is $612. Five years is $1057.
If you only pay interest during school: $619 and $1068/mo.
It’s a lot. Presume, for example, you make $50k after school. Living in A state with 8% taxes. Another calculator shows monthly take home of $2988. Before any Heath insurance or 401k.
I also got accepted into Georgetown this year and I ended up turning it down in favor of a full ride at my state school. Graduating debt-free is an extremely important thing, especially if you plan on going on. And after a few years, it really won’t matter what undergraduate school you attended, employers will pay a lot more attention to your grad school anyways.
Roughly that amount, especially since those loans have income-based repayment. I’d be willing to go double that if you are entering some credentialed health field (like nursing) or some high-earning field like engineering or CS.
Some professions prefer recruits from so-called elite colleges. If you are interested in cyber technology them stay put. But you are interested in policy then you gotta ask yourself “Is SFS worth the price?”. Your SFS network will be superior to any. My kid took on debt to transfer but we knew there would be a return on investment.
55k would be a nice down payment on grad school, which would give you better job prospects. Plus, not having that debt would give you more salary flexibility after graduation. Personally I do not think it is worth the move.
Any job that you can get with a bachelor’s degree in IR is not really going to pay you enough money to make repaying $55K in loans comfortable. Repaying $612 a month on a take-home of around $3,000 is not going to be comfortable at all.
You can get a good job in IR from Georgia Tech, work a few years, save the debt for the master’s degree where it really matters more.
Initially my thoughts are that it isn’t worth it. I’m lucky enough to go to Georgetown with no debt so I see the value of staying at GT with no debt. Upon graduation you’ll have more freedom to take jobs on more basis than simply starting salary, you’ll be able to have a nicer place, and you’ll have a head start on saving, investing, and building wealth. You have a good GPA and GT is well-regarded as a school, so I don’t think transferring is necessary unless you really dislike being at GT which doesn’t come out in your post.
I don’t know what the job market for your intended field is like in Atlanta but I can tell you that DC is going to be a hub for it. Do DC-based employers in your intended field recruit at GT? What about other areas? Has your career center been helpful? At Georgetown, the answer to these questions is yes. What about at GT? If you’re interested in management consulting when you say consulting, MBB all recruit at Georgetown and starting salaries are typically at least $70k which takes a bite out of the $55k in loans. If you get a summer internship that’s another $10k+.
On the RA bit, I can also chime in since I’m an RA. Package compensation is ballpark $15k per year. The application process starts in January/February so if that’s something you’re interested in feel free to PM me and I can offer advice and insight into my experiences.