<p>**** berkeley. ■■■■■.</p>
<p>I’d only go 50k MAX in debt at Berkeley if I was an EECS or another engineering major.</p>
<p>People don’t know how serious college debt is until they graduate and the interest starts piling up. My classmate was telling me about her cousin who graduated with a psychology degree from University of Chicago and she has 80k in loans she can’t pay off because she can’t find a job. Student loans CANNOT be discharged in bankruptcy unless you are deemed permanently physically disabled. </p>
<p>The “experience” is not worth the debt. Go to Uni of Washington, it’s still a top school and their campus is beautiful.</p>
<p>OP, do you plan on attending grad school? if yes, go washington, get a good gpa, and do your grad at berk</p>
<p>if not, go to berk</p>
<p>The stress of high debt is very evident in the past economic cycle. If you have 80K of debt, you are forced to take a job immediately to being paying it down. This is a very large monthly commitment. You don’t want debt driving your life and career choices. </p>
<p>Many people do take out large loans and are still paying them 10-20 years later. The large debt prevents them from saving for homes. the large debt lowers your credit rating. </p>
<p>Going to grad school is also no guarantee of a obtaining a salary after graduation that you can pay down the debt and still afford a life. I hate to tell you how many of my colleagues regret the debt they took on for their education. Cal is great but not that great!</p>
<p>No school is worth that much debt. The young ones on this thread are naive and are going to have MISERABLE lives in their 20s and early 30s while they’re drowning in debt while their peers are not. The dream is the career, not a few years in a school.</p>
<p>^Well said.</p>
<p>There are some downsides to attending state schools like Berkeley. You will have a hard time signing up for classes you want, no professor to pupil interaction, which is crucial for letter of recommendations and grade deflation is pretty bad at Berkeley. The amount of tuition for Berkeley matches stellar private university’s, however the quality of education doesn’t. Berkeley is a great school, but you must place importance on how Berkeley will serve you so that you will be able to achieve your future career goals.</p>
<p>Depending on your definition of good job a prestigious degree most certainly does not guarantee that. A prestigious degree isn’t even a guarantee of entry level employment. It might make it very likely you have entry level employment. I have an aunt that was a director of HR for a fortune 500 company and she didn’t even have a degree or any college education. My aunt was the manager of several Stanford and Berkeley graduates since she lived in the bay area. Your degree will not mean long term career success. </p>
<p>Your degree gets your foot in the door. That is all. Just because you perform well academically that doesn’t mean you will perform well in the work place or be well liked enough to attain a promotion. The work place in some companies is a lot like high school. Those who are liked get promoted!!! What good is someone that gets a lot of work done if he drives the group’s productivity down since no one can stand him?</p>
<p>Entry level salaries in the all fields that require a BA in my opinion are not good. The best you will get is 80k-90k per year salary for a BA in engineering or an investment banking position in an area with a high cost of living.</p>
<p>Minimize your debt go to Washington. My guess is the 80k would be comprised of some private loans. Private loans from banks cannot be forgiven or have income sensitive repayment. They also cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. You are playing with fire being that leveraged.</p>
<p>Wait, can you even take out $80k in loans? Are you a dependent or independent student? If you are dependent, there are limits to how much you can personally take out in loans. Will your parents take out parent plus loans for you? </p>
<p>Before you decide, I highly suggest that you read:</p>
<ol>
<li>The financial aid forum posts on College Confidential.</li>
<li>The student aid pages here: [Student</a> Aid on the Web](<a href=“http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/index.jsp]Student”>http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/index.jsp)</li>
<li>About federal direct loans: [Direct</a> Loan Page for Students](<a href=“http://www.direct.ed.gov/student.html]Direct”>http://www.direct.ed.gov/student.html)</li>
<li>The financial aid page at Cal.</li>
</ol>
<p>lol I love when people do this.</p>
<p>You say you want to be a math major–please DO THE MATH! Figure out how much you would have to repay/month to pay off a $80K loan (which could easily be higher because you may take longer than you expect to graduate if you can’t get your courses because of cuts in the CA budget). Check to see what math majors are making & what % of them are actually HIRED right out of the university vs. what % are NOT hired or working minimum wage jobs. IF you get a minimum wage job upon graduation, what % of your pay will go toward paying off your $80K loan (IF you can even get it)?</p>
<p>We would NOT allow our kids to take on that type of debt, ESPECIALLY for their undergrad educations–it’s WAY too high, especially in this uncertain economy. This type of crushing debt seriously limits your options when you graduate and may well make grad school unaffordable.</p>
<p>Moot point probably, because no one is going to loan that kind of money for that. SOMEBODY is going to do the math!</p>
<p>No way. I’m about to go to UCB and need to pay $5k each year to cover my living expenses. Everything else is covered for by grants and scholarships. I almost went to UCLA because they gave me a full ride.</p>