<p>Something else to consider is the type of job you can afford to take when you graduate. There may be a really good opportunity in terms of experience or promotion in the future that doesn’t pay well or is in an expensive city. If you didn’t have to include your student loan payoff in your budget, you might be able to swing it but you might have to say no to that neat low-paying opportunity because you need to earn more to pay the loans. </p>
<p>Just another possible scenario.</p>
<p>OP. Finding a job you love, at a sufficient salary to pay back loans may not be easy. You may have to go to graduate school, take an unpaid or low paying internship, or take some financial risks to find the job you want. That would be very difficult if saddled with high loans and you would need take any job, no matter how miserable it made you, just to make some money to pay off loans. </p>
<p>Dream schools do not always lead to dream jobs. My DD is at her dream school and is graduating without any idea what she wants to do. Fortunately, she has no loans and has the ability to explore herself and the world with programs such as the Peace Corp. My DS took a minimum wage internship after graduation which eventually led to a dream job. Again, something he would not be able to do if he had loans.</p>
<p>If you don’t care about money, that’s a good reason NOT to go into debt. Having debt forces you to care about money. </p>
<p>You will have to always be concerned about having a job, keeping the job, and working to pay off the debt. </p>
<p>Taking a summer off to backpack through Europe or taking a year off to volunteer in Africa, etc. are options that will be out of the question due to the need to keep working to pay the debt.</p>
<p>Why do we care about money so much?</p>
<p>Because even non-materialistic people need food and shelter. Because bad things happen in life that need money to correct them - cars break down and teeth need to be fixed.</p>
<p>Because sometimes the dream job doesn’t come with a dreamy salary, and personally, I’d take the dreamy job over the dream school any day.</p>
<p>I just want to say thank you all for your input, it’s going to really help a lot when I have to actually make my decisions come April.</p>
<p>I understand about the whole job over college thing. It’s true, I shouldn’t be focusing so much on where I go. It’s up to me to make the best of my educational opportunities, and I can do that at any school, assuming the resources don’t differ too greatly. </p>
<p>And on a funny note, broken teeth are really the pits… I chipped my tooth in China last year, and 1 chance out of a million my host family had connections to a dentist, so I got it fixed for free <3 But I can only imagine how bad it would be if I had to pay…yikes. I was lucky, but in the future, I may not be so lucky. Thanks all for the reality check.</p>
<p>firemist23…it’s great that you have the wisdom to be questioning these things now at your tender age…before you get into a financial mess! As you can tell by some of the posts, these types of loans can be life-altering.</p>