<p>NycHoosier</p>
<p>Did you not consider this before you applied?</p>
<p>Why not go to CC for 2 years then transfer. You will save tons of money.
That is very serious hefty debt. Did you get these loans on your own?</p>
<p>What I don’t understand is the absolute need to pay 30 and 40 thousand dollars a year for a school. I have a friend that paid 40 a year to go to a private school in jersey that anyone has barely heard of just to get a communications degree. Personally I think if someone has the option to take advantage of a system like the CUNY system in nyc then why not go for it. It’s affordable and there so many good programs to pick from. Having an insane amount of debt after you graduate doesn’t show that you learned anything.</p>
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<p>This is how it still is here. I guess we’re “behind”. If the parent’s can’t or won’t pay and the student isn’t willing to take out a bajillion dollars in loans (never a good idea), then the student goes to a cheaper school, chooses schools with great merit and otherwise financial aid programs, goes to community college for two years, etc. etc. Like I said, prior to CC, I have never heard of it being the parent’s responsibility (or choice!) to take out loans for college.</p>
<p>I actually decided 2 days ago not to go to Purdue. I also got accepted to Michigan state and colorado state, as well as SUNY. And so far, SUNY Cobleskill college of agriculture & technology is giving me a full ride into the sunset of animal sciences.</p>
<p>I decided that it was too much debt just to have in undergrad, especially since I have to attend Vet school.</p>
<p>I went to college across the street from Clark Atlanta – no offense to it, but I certainly wouldn’t encourage anyone to borrow $36K to go there. It’s definitely not worth it.</p>
<p>Georgia State may only meet 28% of need, but 96% of the students are in-state. With the HOPE scholarship, any in-state student with a 3.0 will get free tuition, and 85% of the students have a 3.0 or higher. It’s certainly less expensive for a Georgia State resident to go to GSU than it is for him or her to attend Strayer or Argosy, and the degree is much better respected than an Argosy degree.</p>
<p>But the problem here is that college debt is being looked on like homeowner debt was being looked at before the bubble burst. Homeownership was seen as the best possible solution for anyone – even people who could not afford houses – and people thought that they needed the biggest possible house they could afford (just barely). Similarly with college – I see it on here all the time. Students think they “deserve” to go to colleges they can’t afford, and they think it’s a good idea to rack up $50,000+ in debt because it looks like it’s going to be easy to pay off. There was a student here not so long ago who asked if it were a good idea to borrow $160,000 to go to Columbia!</p>
<p>Are we there yet makes a good point, too. Some of these colleges deliberately give the students low debt so they stay low on these lists while expecting their parents to borrown $20K+ a year.</p>
<p>Applicannot, you must live in a really affluent area. Since EFCs run up into the thousands, I don’t understand how you think they’re expected to pay out of pocket with no loans for that amount of money. Few parents have that much money just sitting around. Example, a middle-class family who makes $70,000 a year may have an EFC of $15,000 per year. How would they possibly be expected to pay that out of pocket? That’s why the colleges usually offer them PLUS loans equivalent to the EFC.</p>
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<p>Actually, I live in a lower middle class area. I’d say lower class, but it’s not that far from the water so we get a lot of commuters. My high school had 30% to 40% students on the free and reduced lunch program (and I was one of them). I’m not saying “they’re expected to pay out of pocket with no loans for that amount of money.” I’m saying that in my experiences and where I live, parents DO NOT take on debt for college. Parents pay out of pocket what they can and then the STUDENT takes on the debt. I’m not saying this is how it is everywhere or this is how it should be (although that’s what makes sense to me!). I’m saying that until CC, I had never, ever heard of PARENTS taking out loans for college. It’s an entirely foreign concept to me. I’m not saying that’s how it should be. All I did was comment how strange that sounds.</p>
<p>University of Colorado-Boulder (Out-of-state)</p>
<p>I would have gone there but they hardly had any scholarships and we’d have to take out a $40,000 loan which was out of the question.</p>