Then commit to SBU! It sucks you can’t attend UIUC but don’t go into debt.
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How much debt would u say is reasonable?
I’m not gonna go into specifics, but my parents agreed to pay a little more than what was initially agreed given I pay them back after I graduate and pay off my other student loans. I would need to take out around 70k total for all four years plus or minus 5k depending on if living expenses go up or down. For stony, I would still need to take on debt, but only around 25k which is more than covered by federal loans whereas for UIUC, over half would be private.
If you have to pay your parents back then it is still a loan.
You had indicated earlier a 136K price difference between UIUC and Stony Brook. Even if you were to earn about 10K per year more for the same job by going to UIUC rather than Stony Brook (very unlikely) and even if you did not pay any interest to your parents (and assuming no gift tax implications) it would still take you close to fifteen years to break even.
I believe that borrowing more than what you expect to earn in your first year after graduation is unreasonable.
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I’m glad that you’re really thinking this through! Yeah, I had a 1,580 SAT and am the class Valedictorian (A 4.7 GPA) along with the student body president. But, I think that it’s my essays that got me the scholarships. SBU’s Honors program for CS should draw you there. Like I mentioned before, it comes down to cost and skill.
There’s a similar chain to this - UIUC or ASU (Barrett) and the difference is less - and people are still saying ASU.
I look at who I work with - you have people with no degrees bossing MBAs or people who went to schools you never heard of over people that went to Northwestern, etc. I think when you look at society, yes, higher pedigree schools will obviously do better, but there’s no hard and fast rule.
Ultimately, the cream rises to the top.
The other thing students don’t realize - because they’re all tops going in - is - depending on the study, between 35% to 60% of engineering and CS majors won’t be engineering or CS majors in a couple years. Either it’s not for them…or the major decides the student isn’t for the major.
My son is at Alabama - he’s a 4.6, top 1% of the class, 32 ACT, etc. etc. and they drop like flies!! He’s barely hanging on - and if you listened to his words, not his actions - he’d had failed out first year. Fortunately, he has a 3.7 but now is worried about failing Fluid Mechanics.
Another risk to all this debt is - you ultimately change your major to a liberal art (like math or physics) or like my son said - most go to business because according to him (not me) - it’s easy.
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