<p>20k/year for four years MINIMUM is at LEAST 80k…</p>
<p>Do you know how much the monthly payments are on that kind of debt??? No one a newly minted grad can pay that</p>
<p>Anyone out there have an EFC between 0-20,000 (big spread), but is being asked to pay over 40,000, after your son or daughter is loaded up with loans? We have 2 such generous offers from match schools that did not offer merit money. </p>
<p>Good thing that my son has 3 offers that are good.</p>
<p>Whoa. That’s ^^^ a BIG whine!</p>
<p>Whining and doing the happy dance too! My son can go to 3 schools that were much more reasonable with their offers. He cast a wide net, and we have no regrets. I cannot imagine if the only 2 schools he got into offered the packages I described in post #402.</p>
<p>*
Why are you guys complaining about your financial aid. Have your kid take a loan so he can go to that good college. Study after study have proven that the educated elites make a financial killing compared to those who went to lesser schools.*</p>
<p>Sorry, but that is a very naive answer. Those who go to good colleges still would would struggle trying to repay stifling debt. Someone who graduates from a good college would be very lucky to be earning in the $50-60k during his early working years. That translates to only affording to have borrowed about $40-50k (in total) - about $10k-12,500 per year. That’s not usually enough to go to a “good school.”</p>
<p>
I don’t know how long the amortization is on student debt, so I picked a couple of intervals and interest rates:</p>
<p>
Monthly Payment
____________________________________________
5% 6% 7% 8%
10 years: 848 888 929 970
15 years: 632 675 719 764
30 years: 430 480 532 587
I rounded the numbers which are all 2010 without inflation corrections.
Any mortgage calculator found on the internet will compute other inputs.</p>
<p>From a Student Loan calculator…</p>
<pre><code>Loan Balance: $80,000.00
Adjusted Loan Balance: $80,000.00
Loan Interest Rate: 6.80%
Loan Fees: 0.00%
Loan Term: 10 years
Minimum Payment: $50.00
Monthly Loan Payment: $920.64
Number of Payments: 120
Cumulative Payments: $110,477.25
Total Interest Paid: $30,477.25
</code></pre>
<p>Note: The monthly loan payment was calculated at 119 payments of $920.64 plus a final payment of $921.09.</p>
<p>It is estimated that you will need an annual salary of at least $110,476.80 to be able to afford to repay this loan. This estimate assumes that 10% of your gross monthly income will be devoted to repaying your student loans.</p>
<p>I just cut and paste these last two responses and sent them to my HS senior who is struggling with a $20,000 bill for her dream school vs $3,000 to her third choice school. I think that she needs to understand what the payments will be at that level and the impact it will have on her life for years! Regardless of her earning potential, it is a lot of debt.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your insights. It is really really hard to tell your child, who has worked so very hard the past 4 years that they need to take that dream school off the table. None of us wants to say ‘no’ to our kids, but sometimes that is the best thing to do. </p>
<p>This board makes it much easier to do…I guess misery and whiners love company!! LOL I’m one and I’m done whining!!</p>
<p>It is estimated that you will need an annual salary of at least $110,476.80 to be able to afford to repay this loan.</p>
<p>Just the part above should put fear into any person who is considering such debt. Typically it takes many, many years for someone to earn $110k per year…often long after a person has been paying on student loans. </p>
<p>What is your D’s likely career? </p>
<p>At first, my son (the Val of his school, NMF, high stats, etc) argued that he, too, had worked hard and deserved to go to a dream school. But, reason won out, he’s very happy, and he’ll likely get to go to his dream school for grad school.</p>
<p>At first, my son (the Val of his school, NMF, high stats, etc) argued that he, too, had worked hard and deserved to go to a dream school. But, reason won out, he’s very happy, and he’ll likely get to go to his dream school for grad school.</p>
<p>My daughter is going to major in Athletic Training. She loves loves loves Iowa State, but I just don’t think they will give her enough money to make it affordable. Her second choice is our in state school…Illinois State, again, I don’t think that they will come in under $20,000 w/ loans. Loras has been very generous and is at $13000 and even lower if she does work/study - they will be at $11,000!!! I don’t think that we can turn that away and they are a wonderful LAC with a very good reputation in the Midwest. Not as diverse as I would like, and the food is pretty bad in the cafeteria, but hey maybe she will avoid the freshman 15. </p>
<p>She is planning on grad school and hopes to be a GA. Hopefully she will do well in school and get to go to her ‘dream’ school as a GA. I love hearing that your son is planning this too.</p>
<p>My daughter is very frugal and understands the value of a dollar, so I don’t have to do a lot of pushing to make her understand…but as a parent it is difficult to not fulfill their dreams.</p>
<p>What is a GA? Graduate Asst?</p>
<p>Hey, if the food is bad at Loras, is anyone trying to do anything about that?</p>
<p>Guessing thats a graduate assistant</p>
<p>oops-- you said that. My bad.</p>
<p>I believe you are correct. I also noticed today you hit 10,000 posts in 6 mos! Wow!</p>
<p>My son had his breakdown “whine” tonight. He too, is the val at his school, great EC’s, well-liked, humble kid. Kids look up to him at school and of course, everyone is asking where he is going and assuming he is having “full-rides” falling out of the sky. (He is at a public school where many kids go to state schools, often local so they haven’t done a lot of research,etc. in school) Well, it’s financial aid package time and he is seeing people around him - students who haven’t necessarily been the “best” students, or been active in school announcing big aid at schools because of low/no EFC’s, diversity offers, etc. I think honestly he is feeling sort of like his “hard work” isn’t paying off and he is frustrated. He has filled out many local scholarship forms, but heard back from none yet. He has received merit from many schools -most which are about 1/2 tuition, but the highest merit they offer and still is left with big balances and little other aid. We talked for a long time. I felt 
for him . In the end we laughed, and his panic moment passed. </p>
<p>So, now I guess we are a “whining” family. :)</p>
<p>oops deleted</p>
<p>abasket,
I’m going to guess that any of the families that have an EFC of zero would happily exhange EFC’s with you, in exchange for income swaps for life.</p>
<p>You game ?</p>
<p>I totally understand that. ^^^ And totally talked about that with my son. And he understands that as well. </p>
<p>But this IS a whine thread and sometimes you get your whine out and can move on better. He whined, got past it and is currently sitting at the computer working on another scholarship app.</p>
<p>^ good for him. That kind of work ethic will serve him well in college and beyond, and makes this forum’s focus on how expensive a school one can reach really quite trite.</p>
<p>Well Eric, keep in mind that I am the OP of the thread. :)</p>
<p>We know well the in’s and out’s of the college ap process - been there, done that. He applied to 7 schools to put a variety on the table. But because we have put a lot of time and energy into the process - researching, visiting, him at school and test taking, etc. , I believe “we” are still allowed a moment to stomp our feet and whine - the goal then is to walk away, head held high and move pass disappointment and ahead to opportunities. Because they will be there in many places.</p>
<p>The whine will be brief, but fulfilling for just a moment.</p>
<p>abasket - I feel your pain. We are just starting to come to terms with the fact that stellar stats do not always add up to great FA packages, especially if you are a middle income family. D hasn’t really said anything but I feel the same way that your son feels - that D has worked so hard for the last 7 years (she’s had straight A’s since 6th grade) and it doesn’t seem to be paying off. I really think the ecomony has hit the colleges hard and our kids are paying for it. Unfortunately they have the bad luck of graduating during one of the worst economic times in our country’s history.</p>