<p>Just a note regarding merit scholarships. Many FA offices will recalculate need-based aid as merit $$ very often is used to replace all or part of the original FA award. Merit does not stack on top of need-based aid in most cases. OP would need to check the FA policy at WUSTL to be sure, but this can really be a huge shock if student was not aware in advance.</p>
<p>I’d be wary of taking on so much debt. People are starting to notice that College isn’t always an investment. My guess is that if you got in ED to Wash U, you’ll do well anywhere that you apply yourself. If the loans are significantly less elsewhere, I don’t know why you’re even questioning the decision. Four in 10 college graduates, according to a recent Gallup study, wind up in jobs that don’t require a college degree. Not saying that will be you of course, but why start out your career with so much debt hanging over your head? There’s a well-known study done by a Princeton Professor that says a student who gets into [name ivy league school] and ends up going to [name high quality public university] ends up just as successful as the guy who went to the ivy. A famous quote in our house: “the value add is in the kid.”
A recent article on value in education:
[Degrees</a> of Value: How to Make College Affordable - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303870704579298302637802002]Degrees”>Degrees of Value: How to Make College Affordable - WSJ)</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone’s said this yet: if you’re going to med school one of the two or three characteristics that matter the most is your GPA. the school where you get that GPA will matter less. so ask yourself if you think the GPA at WashU will be higher than the GPA at Georgia after four years? if you think there’s a chance it will be, ask yourself if the chance of that happening is worth going 35k/yr in debt for.</p>
<p>the consensus so far, OP, is that WashU cannot be worth that kind of debt for someone who might go to med school and for most people with this choice. You can go to Georgia and build your own network of support among administrators, faculty, classmates, and alumni.</p>
<p>^For real.</p>
<p>My general advice for anyone is to go to your local state school if you’re premed, get the highest gpa you can regardless of major (a 4.0 in, say, history will indeed look better than a 3.5 in biomed engineering…), and save on the tuition costs.
Med school is going to run you another possible $200k in debt. Why start off with 50 on top of that?</p>
<p>(Do note, I’m one of WashU’s biggest proponents on this board saying this).</p>
<p>This is interesting discussion. On some of the other Top CC schools boards, people are falling over each other saying Yes, it is definitely worth it to go into debt for a prestigious school- much less support for state flagships or LACs with generous merit than I am reading here.</p>
<p>Mocha99 - I haven’t really read much of that discussion for the other Top CC schools, so I may be off base on this. But naturally there is a tendency to justify one’s actions no matter the objective evidence. That’s true whether it is the car you decided to buy, the person you decided to date, or the college you chose despite the debt you took on. There’s a marketing term for that kind of post-purchase rationalization, but I forget what it is.</p>
<p>I don’t think one can put much stock in those opinions, especially since nearly all of them only have experience at the Top CC school. How do they really know what it would have been like to save the money and be at the state flagship?</p>
<p>There are several boards like this one where the people tend to be more objective. I have seen it fairly often.</p>
<p>Edit: I found this on Wiki: <a href=“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias[/url]”>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias</a></p>
<p>I’m rocking that wiki, fc, thanks.</p>
<p>I should say that I anticipate my D’s acceptance into WashU and my inability to afford it, so it seems likely I have a cognitive bias. </p>
<p>However, it is also the case that once upon a time I thought I might be wrong but found later I was mistaken.</p>
<p>I would tell them to go for anything less than 50k debt if more medical school debt is not anticipated.</p>
<p>Just want to say I am sorry to hear of your situation – you must really like Wash U if you applied ED, and it must be a very difficult decision. I commend you for taking seriously the financial aspect of the choice and its implications for your family.</p>
<p>I am only echoing what others have said, but…
- contact Wash U directly and have a frank conversation about merit and need-based aid. Be sure you are clear about what is possible and what is not. It sounds like merit aid because you can’t have submitted a FAFSA yet, right? So find out if there will be any more aid on top of the $25K. It doesn’t sound like you got a financial aid award letter, but rather a merit aid offer.<br>
- learn more about the Honors Program – it will probably remind you of all the reasons you like Wash U (mentoring, more opportunities, challenging classes).</p>
<p>Pre-med at Wash U is supposedly very rigorous. Whether there or somewhere else, like you said, you may decide to study another field. The less debt you take on now, the more free you will be later. As everyone says, save some $ for grad school.</p>
<p>^^really? why, texaspg? You’ll see right away I’m not a financial advisor, but bear with me. Let’s say the parents borrow 11, 12, 13, and 14 over the four (one hopes) years with a ten year term at 6%. The payments would go from 122 to 276 to 473 to 730/month over the four years and wouldn’t be paid off until late 2024. That’s a healthy chunk of most people’s post-retirement-savings discretionary income, yes? What if there’s another child? Don’t parents have an obligation to treat each child somewhat fairly? Does that mean an add’l couple/month for some of those years and more? Last I checked income was fairly flat versus inflation. Where’s this money coming from each month until retirement? I like going out to eat once a week, having a week or ten-day family vacation each year, etc. If I give that up, will I be able to swing 200-600/month for ten years? </p>
<p>How do most parents do this? I’m just asking, cause I sure haven’t figured it out. Forget savings–they are by definition gone the first year. texaspg said $50K of debt. Please help me understand where to find those kind of monthly payments for ten years.</p>
<p>Why are the parents borrowing? I am suggesting 50k debt for a student with no med school ambition is an acceptable investment to go to WashU.</p>
<p>I have already said in post #9 that it is not a good choice for this particular student.</p>
<p>Yes, it is usually the student that has the obligation after they finish school. I disagree about the amount that is acceptable debt, I think $50K is still way high. Most of these loans are for 10 years and interest accrues while in school, even though repayment is delayed. So pretty quickly the $50K becomes more like $55K before a payment is even made. That means almost a $600/month repayment at a 5% interest rate. To me that is pretty steep. I have personally always used a rule of thumb that $25K is the most anyone should have after 4 years. But of course it is just an opinion. There are a lot of variables involved.</p>
<p>okay, 50K in debt for the student, then. If we do the same 10 year term that payment works out to something like $555/month. You will admit that’s a lot of discretionary income to fork out for someone just starting out. What must it rule out for the non-engineers in the graduating class? Let’s say the average income in St. Louis for a non-engineer recent graduate in 2018 is 47K. You gross 3615/month, after-taxes take is 2850/month. That leaves you with 2300/month to pay (the national average for) rent (1200), food (300), and health insurance (250). In no particular order, for savings, travel, life insurance, vacation, clothing, car payment, car insurance, entertainment, cable, utilities, retail taxes, etc., you have $550/month. Is it any wonder that recent grads find themselves supplementing their income with help from their parents and/or find they’re not saving anything for retirement? </p>
<p>I know I’ve made mistakes and not considered many things. I hope others will correct me. Still. These are the students who graduate in four years and find work in their fields. </p>
<p>Is this any way to run an economy if you expect your higher wage earners to start out their first ten years climbing out of such a hole?</p>
<p>I think you hit it pretty dead on, jkeil. That is why I say $25K it about the limit, since that takes the payment to half, or about $225 a month. That seems more tolerable for someone earning about $50K a year. Again, just an opinion and tolerance for debt varies, but the reasoning seems quite solid to me.</p>
<p>Our world views are so narrow, fc, that sometimes we forget that our present or future is not everyone else’s. Some of my students graduate not only with the debt but with the family expectation that they will help out their brothers and sisters or other family members. We sometimes talk on this board as if everyone is upper-middle-class, is living a peculiarly homogeneous American dream, has socked away a healthy retirement fund and a college savings fund before each kid goes off to college, and has a really good understanding of home finances. You would think that the last real estate bubble would have convinced us that not everyone possesses the last of these, but we go on talking as if our ignorance was a thing of the past. I’m no wizard at home finances, so if there’s a way that after dropping all my savings into her brother’s education I can afford to take on 50K and retire in 10 years–or that she can do so wisely–I do wish someone would show that to me. </p>
<p>My friends with kids in college routinely volunteer that they don’t think they’ll ever be able to retire or at least not til they’re seventy. I hope that they are able to retire or hold their jobs as long as they want, but what’s it doing to the job market and the economy when the top earners don’t make way for the young? I’ll have to leave that to the economists, I guess. I’m happy to be as well off as I am, but I do sense we need to revolutionize the way we educate our young.</p>
<p>I agree, jkeil. Although to be fair, that is why I used a kind of catch-all phrase, “tolerance for debt varies”. To be sure, for some people even $25K of debt would be a burden, and for those people the world of private school education becomes almost impossible, unless they get full scholarships or attend no-loan schools (pretty much the same thing as a full scholarship but with need based criteria). There are not a ton of these running around.</p>