Taking out significant student loans/paying for college

I have two in college. One is going to a state school and has taken the federal and some private loans. This year his private loans are not nearly as much as in the past due to him working and living off campus.

My other son just started and is going to a private division 1 school that is $$$. His tuition is covered by his scholarships but not his room and board (which is also not cheap).

My sister graduated from Syracuse in May with a LOT of student loans. She loved it there and I hope it pays off for her. So far she hasn’t gotten a job. My stepmom took out parent plus loans for her but I think the plan was for my sister to pay those back as well as her own federal loans. Her major was something like international studies and she wants to either go to law school or work for the government. I’m not sure how much that pays. But I don’t know that I would have encouraged getting that many loans for an undergrad degree if the pay for her major wasn’t going to make it worth it. It probably would have been better to spend more for a prestigious law school. I think now she is putting that off due to the loans she already has.

From my understanding, either parent plus through the government or private loans (we used College Ave) are the ways to pay for what federal loans don’t cover. We chose private since the loans can be changed to DS’s name only (we had to co-sign) after a few years. We don’t really want all of that debt for four kids to be under our name (and not even sure we would be able to do that anyway). I’m hoping the kids can pay off their loans fairly quickly if they get good jobs and are frugal the first few years.

I would encourage her cast a wide net and even look at private schools, which often have large endowments and can offer scholarships based on family income. Another option is to encourage her to stay in-state for undergrad (she may net a large scholarship with her scores) and save the loan money for grad school. In many industries, a graduate degree is a necessity, so it’s good to plan ahead.

I would meet with a private college counselor and get their advice. She will want to find a good school that offers financial aid based on both need and merit if possible.

I will probably one of the few that will have this opinion, but please have very real and open discussions with your daughter about what it will *actually* mean if she graduates with $120K in loans. It will impact her future in very real, possibly painful ways --- where she can live, jobs she can chose to have, whether or not she can travel, stay home with her babies if she wanted to, etc.

If this were my daughter, I would encourage her to get her basics out of the way thru a community college. Something to also remember is most students get their largest financial aid offers their freshman year so you can't expect to have the same $$ offer for future years.

I get this is a dream school for her - and with her scores, she will probably get some scholarships. But if the math doesn't make sense overall (and long term) then I would be encouraging my daughter to look at other schools.

Please find a college financial advisor to go over your numbers and what your options are. Preferably find someone not connected to any specific school to give you advice.

100% this.  DD just graduated from a great community college here, and is now at a 4-year school.  Tuition at the CC was so cheap, and it all transferred up flawlessly.  We are super fortunate to not have to deal with loans for college, and she could have gone anywhere she wanted.  But she was smart about knowing the education is the same for her path than if she would have gone somewhere bigger.  

Encourage her to go the cheapest route, her economic future will thank her.  

I addition to what I posted above, I agree 100% with those who counsel against big loans. We were very upfront with our kids about what we could afford to do for them and what student loan payments had done to our early married years.

Both chose to go to a local state university and have been very happy with their decisions. They’ve had a great education and are well prepared for whatever comes next. Older DD graduated in May and is working, and as her work friends are preparing to start paying their loans back, DD has mentioned to us a couple of times how grateful she is not to have them.

I realize the option to finish loan free is not always possible, but I think the advice to minimize loans (vs. splashing out on a ‘dream school’ for undergrad) is worth considering.

Robotics kids unite! Sorry couldn't resist! So first off any loans beyond the federal maximums ($5,500-8,000 depending on year) per year will need to be cosigned - so really understand what that means for your family. I'm not a fan of huge loans, I think the federal limits are reasonable, but beyond that - she needs to not just think long and hard, but really look at what this means from a budget perspective when she goes to pay those off.

Second off - what schools is she looking at/dreaming about? As mentioned above, private schools can be extremely generous with financial aid if she can get into them. Spend a little time running the net price calculators on a few schools to get a sense on what kind of aid she'll receive. As mentioned above, these FAFSA is changing, so nothing is going to be concrete right now. She needs to be very aware that public schools vary tremendously - some states - University of California system for example - give ZERO financial and next to nothing for merit aid. Others - particularly some of the big southern public university give generous merit to top out of state students. Some such as University of Arizona have guaranteed merit tables on their websites based on gpa and test scores.

Good luck on our journey! I've spent a whole lot of time on engineering schools - so feel free to pm me if you'd like.

All this. We had pretty frank conversations with our DD and currently with our DS now. It is just not worth getting into debt for an undergrad degree in detain fields. It’s awful to say when a child has thier heart set on a certain school but you can’t assume there will be debt forgiveness or grace and it will really suck to have a mortgage equivalent payment on top of a real mortgage payment or rent… 😢

We're about to head off of a demographic cliff (already sliding down it) for college-aged kids and colleges are responding. My advice is to have her apply to a range of schools and see what financial aid she can negotiate. Ivy-type schools generally offer reasonable financial aid with smaller student loans, and less highly-selective schools often have a sticker price online but offer substantial discounts to many or even most students (like 50-100% off of tuition). If you get a reasonable deal from one school, it's also possible in many schools to try to negotiate with another school by letting them know about the more advantageous financial offer another school made for you.

I will say up front that I realize I am in a better position than some because my work means my kids can go to college for free or for a steep discount at a lot of schools based on my employer, but I personally would advise my kid against taking on a large amount of undergraduate student debt (I realize "large" is an amorphous term).

I think there is far too much emphasis placed on the gigantic state schools. For the vast majority of majors, they dont make sense. Once you are out of college, no one cares of you went to the big, expensive state school except other people who went there.

The focus should be on finding a good fit for the student (in distance from home and school size), and a school that has the desired major. My ds absolutely would have been accepted to "huge state school", but he chose not to apply- the school was far larger than he wanted and his major was offered in an accelerated program at "small state school". He earned a full scholarship that, due to the accelerated program, covered him well into grad school. He graduated debt free.

Grad students can very often get an assistantship that will pay tuition and possibly fees as well and she'd also receive a stipend for living expenses. She's live like a "poor college student" but she wouldn't need to take on any student loans to do it.

I was going to say the same thing. I am a former college financial aid advisor. I had a lot of out of state students that got in a lot of dept because they wanted to go to a university in Los Angeles. They could have received an equally solid education in their home state and I always told them to think long and hard before going into so much debt.  Ask yourself if you really want this burden for decades. This will impact your life for years to come. It will impact every aspect of your finances long after you graduate. and depending how much money your career pays, it may not be worth getting in dept for.