<p>I'm a transfer so I expected a terrible financial aid package.</p>
<p>My award covers half of George Washington University's tuition in loans.</p>
<p>$44,000-$23,000 (in loans)=$21,000</p>
<p>should i take it?</p>
<p>You need to state your other options. Should you take it or not depends on what you do if you do not take it.</p>
<p>How will you pay the difference? More loans? Do you have a loan balance already? What year are you as a transfer, soph? Jr?</p>
<p>i’m a sophomore transfer</p>
<p>i don’t have any loans from my freshman year. the remaining $21,000 is ALL loans as well.</p>
<p>if i don’t take it then i’ll go to Virginia Tech where I’ll be paying $18,000 in loans.</p>
<p>$60000+ in loans sound pretty bad, with all due respect. that’s probably a PLUS loan (yuck) or even a private loan (double-yuck, only because they’re harder to get and aren’t even offered through the school!) </p>
<p>(and that’s just tuition. will you need to borrow for room, board, books, etc. too?) </p>
<p>are those your only two options? are you oos for tech?</p>
<p>yeah, those are my only two options. and those are only for the tuition, not books, dorming, etc. i’m out of state for tech. </p>
<p>it was expected. both schools lost the idea of the importance of an education i guess</p>
<p>How are you going to pay for a place to live? And how can these be your only two options given the thousands of colleges in the US?</p>
<p>these are the only colleges that accepted me. my parents are paying for my room and board.</p>
<p>i’m from DC and can only stay in either DC, MD, or VA.</p>
<p>Wait, i just saw that the other half is loans too. this is really not a good idea. do you have to leave your current school right away? would you be able to stay for another semester and reapply to better schools? $44k+ a year x 3 is an absurd amount of student debt; it’ll sharply limit your housing and career and other lifestyle options after graduation for decades.</p>
<p>Can you attend your current school for one more year or do you have a community college/ cheap instate option? How many credits do you have to have from GW to graduate from there (final 30 or final 60)? There are lots of schools in that area-- did you look at others like UMd, Georgetown, Trinity College if you’re female, AU, Catholic or Mary Washington? I would urge you to apply to more schools and see if you can find a cheaper solution.</p>
<p>If the only choice is as you have posted, I would say that you should find a way to take as many credits as you can cheaply before reapplying to GW. So if GW only requires the final 60 credits in residence, I would urge you to acquire another year of college through a cheap, local option even if it means working and going to school. After that, I would encourage you to work and go to GW, not VaTech because GW is local and you can live at home. That way, if you have to stop, work and restart school, you can do it easily with GW. (Plus, if your parents can pay $10K a year for room/board at Tech, you can put that aside, live at home, and use that $ for tuition at GW.)</p>
<p>Oh, one more strategy: If you do take my suggestion and work your way through one (or two) more years without debt, go ahead and take out the Stafford loan and just hold onto it until you need it for your final years. That way, more of your loans are the lower-interest Stafford loans instead of higher interest private or PLUS loans.</p>
<p>Did you apply to George Mason? UMBC? Towson? Absolutely do not borrow $120k+ for GW.</p>
<p>Is DCTAG still being funded? Did you figure that in?
[College</a> Explorations: DC Residents Qualify for Huge Tuition Breaks at Public Institutions Nationwide](<a href=“http://collegeexplorations.blogspot.com/2009/10/dc-residents-qualify-for-huge-tuition.html]College”>College Explorations: DC Residents Qualify for Huge Tuition Breaks at Public Institutions Nationwide)</p>
<p>
I don’t know why VT “lost the idea of the importance on an education”. You are OOS. Do you really expect the VA taxpayers to fund *your *education?</p>
<p>Why the heck didn’t you apply to more affordable schools?<br>
It doesn’t make any sense to get into that kind of debt for an undergraduate degree–especially when there are so many other options out there.</p>
<p>I applied to more in-state schools in MD where my dad lives. rejected</p>
<p>How did you get accepted to George Washington, yet rejected to in-state Maryland schools?
It just doesn’t seem possible-unless you only applied to Johns Hopkins and Loyola. </p>
<p>There are so many other schools out there. I do not recommend going into the kind of debt that you’re talking about for an undergrad degree. Maybe you should take a semester off.
Spend the semester researching schools that fit your academic AND financial parameters.
After you’ve created another list, send out some more applications and hopefully, you’ll have more choices that fall within a more reasonable bottom line cost range.</p>
<p>There are still schools accepting applications, both inexpensive instate schools and schools with merit money. The link to the list is here somewhere; I’m not 100% sure how to find it.</p>
<p>The only loans that you can take without a co-signer are the Stafford Loans. Their limits are:
Freshman year $5,500
Sophomore year $6,500
Junior year $7,500
Senior year $7,500</p>
<p>You cannot afford GW. Period. You also can’t afford V Tech. Walk down to your closest CVS, buy a box of Puffs Plus (they are the softest ones) and cry your way through that box. When it is empty, kick those two admissions offers to the curb. You deserve a better future.</p>
<p>If your dad is a Maryland resident, you may qualify for in-state status at the public universities. If your grades and test scores are good enough to get you into GW and V Tech, you certainly are admissible at all of the public Us except for St Mary’s, UM-CP and UM-BC. Chances are that you are admissible at those three as well.</p>
<p>It may be too late to get in for the fall term, but there is nothing wrong with taking the summer and fall off while you apply for spring admissions. If you can’t stand to wait, and you can’t stand the thought of returning to your current college/university for the fall, take a look at the NACAC list [Space</a> Availability Survey Results 2011](<a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/Research/SpaceAvailabiltySurvey/Pages/SpaceSurveyResults.aspx]Space”>http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/Research/SpaceAvailabiltySurvey/Pages/SpaceSurveyResults.aspx) and at Peterson’s list of late application date and rolling admissions institutions [List</a> of Late Deadline Schools- Locate Colleges with Late Application Deadlines at Petersons.com](<a href=“http://www.petersons.com/college-search/late-deadline-schools.aspx]List”>http://www.petersons.com/college-search/late-deadline-schools.aspx)</p>
<p>If you still don’t want to believe that these universities are unaffordable, run the numbers here: [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Award Letter Requirements - Finaid) Then talk those numbers over with your parents.</p>
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<p>DC doesn’t have much of a state university system anyway. s/he shouldnt expect to be supported by virginians but it is a little frustrating to essentially be an OOS applicant in every state in the country when you’re a citizen. </p>
<p>as far as the DC tuition program, that covers up to $10000 of the difference b/w IS and OOS costs and $2500/year towards some privates. that can be very helpful but in this case even with this grant the student might not be able to afford it – it depends on how much the parents are willing to contribute. taking the whole thing out in loans would be a mistake though.</p>
<p>Is the student getting the $10k per year from D.C.???</p>
<p>Did she apply to George Mason? Did I miss that?</p>