<p>Stillgreen,
I think you are reading the chart wrong. It is confusing. The limits are 5500, 6500, 7500, 7500 per year total. If you are getting the subsidized amount (3500), then you can take the unsubsidized loan only up to the maximum per year, or an additional 2000 to make 5500, etc.</p>
<p>Here is a better chart: [Student</a> Aid on the Web](<a href=“http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp#03]Student”>http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp#03)</p>
<p>Boy, talk about a circuitous route off topic… :)</p>
<p>I’m an IL resident, and the story is unsettling but not surprising. Because of graft, clout & corruption (not necessarily in that order), the state either can’t pay or at the very least has been ‘prioritizing’ their bill-paying for years. It came to fruition with Blagojevich but the same practices have been in effect as long as Michael Madigan has been running the state from Springfield. The only difference now is that the corruption has been exposed since the economy took a header.</p>
<p>UIUC was a darn good value for many years. Now? In-state not so much, and OOS forget about it because the cuts will keep on keepin’ on. My cousin’s niece attends UIUC & her parents pay the OOS shot, over $45K out the door yearly. I don’t see it. The other state U’s are reasonably priced for the time being, but in order to get real value out of those institutions, the student definitely has to be a self-starter & take advantage of the education, rather than be content with a B average and a BA degree. 'Cause that ain’t necessarily a ticket to a decent job, as we’ve all seen.</p>
<p>Bay, it is more intuitive to read the chart as,</p>
<p>Annual Loan Limit= Subsidized Limit+ Unsubsidized Limit</p>
<p>If your interpretation were correct, then Stafford should have rewritten the chart. :-)</p>
<p>jnm123, there are a lot of universities that give automatic scholarships for good grades and scores. Have you looked into any of them?</p>
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<p>Well, NH is a net donor nation to the Federal Government so it isn’t
like we have our hand out.</p>
<p>But let’s talk about Singapore. A country in third-world status with a
generally uneducated populace that was kicked out of Malaysia onto a
piece of land with no natural resources. They’ve moved into the first
world, have to deal with an urban setting and they have a combination
of low taxes, high income, very low unemployment (they need a lot of
immigrants for their expanding economy), 3% of GDP healthcare costs,
excellenet education system, and they’re able to compete with China
and India next door.</p>
<p>They do a good job of spending their resources wisely as opposed to
cranking up taxes to throw money away.</p>
<p>It’s harder to scale up local government but look at what we have on
the opposite end of the scale. Corruption, high costs of living,
housing and healthcare problems, education problems. These things
also occur in rural states with small populations. What is different
about the states that do well vs the states that don’t?</p>
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<p>And yet it works quite well for colleges and universities. At least
those that do a good enough job so that their alumni and their parents
appreciate that they use the money wisely.</p>
<p>Nobody is saying that voluntary contributions are adequate - that’s a
strawman. What others are saying - to those that want to pay more
taxes - to go ahead and make contributions.</p>
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<p>Charity works quite well in certain areas. But donors want to know
that the money is well-spent. The Catholic Church in the Boston area
used to be quite wealthy and considered a worthy cause. Throw in the
pedophile priest scandal and see what happens to their donation rates.</p>
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<p>I do not see how you can resolve these two things without cleaning up
government. I see no interest at all in cleaning up government. Those
that benefit from it want more. Many of those that pay for it want less.</p>
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<p>Public Schools are a priority. We spend, typically, $11,223 per
student per year. Do you want more, less or the same? If more or less,
then by how much?</p>
<p>StillGreen,
I agree with your intuition, but I still say it is wrong. I know for a fact that the unsubsidized amount is not limited to $2K per year, because my D took one for more than that! 
If you do not qualify for the subsidized loan, you are eligible to take the entire maximum amount in an unsubsidized loan.</p>
<p>Adding: The chart you linked is supplied by a private company. The chart I linked comes directly from the federal government (Dept. of Ed)</p>
<p>Bay, I shall give you the benefit of a doubt, since I didn’t borrow anything from Stafford. :-)</p>
<p>Back in the good old days when I went to UIUC, I paid roughly $300 per semester. It was affordable for everyone, no loans. </p>
<p>Somewhere along the line, the state stopped funding the universities. I get letters from the law school at UIUC saying that the state only funds 3% of the operating costs. </p>
<p>Graft, fraud, paying off special interests have taken priority over the universities. And yet the same clowns keep getting voted in.</p>
<p>If taxes were raised, what percentage of it would go to graft, fraud and paying off special interests and what would go to lowering student costs? The current approach of charging wealthier families higher rates at least keeps all of the money within the university system meaning fewer tolls on the way to needy students.</p>
<p>Sewhappy, when we were scouting schools, I most certainly looked at potential merit awards for virtually every institution in IL. Both of my D’s ended up attending OOS publics, although they each were admitted to UIUC. One of them would’ve gotten a small award had she attended there. And had either decided to attend SIU/Carbondale or some of the in-state privates (except N’Western) they’d have gotten a nice chunk of change. That may have changed over the last few years, not for the better.</p>
<p>But that’s not the point. With the state being more or less bankrupt, all of the state schools will become more expensive with less services provided. I don’t see any way around that. As I’ve stated in other posts, look for the good in-state community colleges to become MUCH more popular in the coming years. And Champaign will get its applicants as well because of prestige & their current (and future) policy of a higher percentage of OOS students to make up the financial deficit. But…I see this trend hurting ISU, NIU, Western, Eastern for sure.</p>
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</p>
<p>2005 national government spending to taxes paid by state:
[The</a> Tax Foundation - Federal Spending Received Per Dollar of Taxes Paid by State, 2005](<a href=“http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/266.html]The”>http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/266.html)</p>
<p>Biggest donor ratios were: NJ, NV, CT, NH, MN, IL, DE, CA, NY, CO
Biggest recipient ratios were: DC, NM, MS, AK, LA, WV, ND, AL, SD, KY</p>
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</p>
<p>[Higher</a> education funding may need decade or longer to recover, scholar says | News Bureau | University of Illinois](<a href=“News Bureau | ILLINOIS”>News Bureau | ILLINOIS)</p>
<p>I agree with her. Many U’s still do not believe what they are seeing/hearing and that it is just a bad dream. The era of big cheap good state U’s is over. They will have to be smaller and more expensive to survive. Or just become online diploma mills.</p>
<p>
jnm, that is already happening where I live. D graduated in 2008 - several of her classmates who were accepted to one of our in-state Unis decided to stay home and attend CC instead. I know of 2 who received their AA May (2010) are now completing a BA at the same in-state Uni they turned down 2 years ago.</p>
<p>About California budget cuts…</p>
<p>source: Bay Area News Group, 4/19/11:
Out-of-state pupils push UC to milestone - as funding cuts loom, university system welcomes more nonresident freshmen, paying pricier tuition:</p>
<p>“With state budget cuts threatening to limit enrollment, campuses have turned to out-of-state students to help pay the bills…starting this fall, nonresident undergraduates will pay more than $34,000 per year, compared with resident tuition of $11,124…at UC-Berkeley, more than 31 percent were from out of state (of this year’s admitted freshmen)…the university placed thousands of students on wait lists for admission to the campus of their choice. More than 16,500 were placed on the list…UC continued its recent practice of admitting applicants not to the campus of their choice, redirecting them instead to UC Merced, which opened in 2005…more than 12,700 applicants were referred to Merced this year, based on past data, only about 5 percent of those students will accept the offer…the Merced referrals make the growing out-of-state enrollment less palatable, said Steve Boilard, higher-education chief for the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analysts’s Office. “It’s a little cynical to say we’re admitting all qualified California residents,” he said, " when we all know a portion of those students are being redirected to a campus very few of them will attend.”</p>
<p>jnm – have you looked at Indiana, Alabama, South Carolina? They are real bargains for good OOS students.</p>
<p>Community Colleges and Directional State U’s are now very over-crowded in my state. The likelihood of getting one’s classes is very very low now. It is big hidden cost to have to spend extra years to put together a degree, unfortunately.</p>
<p>The community colleges in my state and adjacent state are crowded but classes can still be had by signing up early enough. I believe that the State College system has slots available given the marketing that I hear on the radio. The flagship in that state is competitive to get into but the other State Universities seem to have slots available. I think that the great number of colleges and universities in New England cut into the demand for publics but it’s clear that more students are opting for publics in this economy.</p>
<p>Sewhappy, I’m done with the choosing part, my D’s are mostly done with the attending part, but I’m just not done with the paying part. And that’s really the most important part, isn’t it? :)</p>