<p>Loans are totally manageable, at least for most middle-classers. </p>
<p>I’m in the same boat, more or less. As an incoming freshman they basically gave me 15k in loans and a measly 4k grant. I also got work study and some random $300 scholarship (which made no sense because realistically I’m sure I was at the bottom of the merit pile, and probably not poor enough to deserve the ‘middle class’ non-merit scholarship either). My family is more towards upper middle class, but we have three kids in college at the moment so it’s been rough trying to pay for it. </p>
<p>Last year I held two jobs for a total of about 10-20 hours on any given week. It really wasn’t bad, I made good money (~$150 a week) and I had plenty of cash to take care of things like food, books, and hanging out with friends. The loan payments are/were deferred until after graduation, so there’ll be none of that for a while.</p>
<p>This year, I’m not sure what happened, but they gave me another 10k in grant money. Good grades? Being sexy? Knowing kung fu? I’m not sure what I did right. But it was helpful. Subsequently I don’t have to work this year (I’m overloading on units so this is a good thing) and I get to focus on my studies and worry less about school.</p>
<p><strong>SPOILER ALERT</strong>: If you plan to study abroad for a semester or year, it’s almost always much cheaper than CMU. The university in Japan I’m looking at has an $8k tuition for the semester. You could save money -and- go somewhere exotic. Also, Snape kills Dumbledore.</p>