Are loans worth it?

intparent
Wed, 13 Apr 2016 01:32:55 +0000

What is the school? What is your planned major?

Probably your loans will go up a bit every year (by $1,000 soph year, and $2,000 more the next year, holding steady there for senior year). So your loan total is likely to be (just including the parent plus loan, too, although technically that is your parents’ loan):

Freshman year: $8,100
Soph year: $9,100
Jr year: $11,100
Sr. year: $11,100

So the total could be as much as $39,400, and you will pay interest on that as well. So it is more than it seems like.

Why aren’t you accepting work study? It can be challenging to find jobs on campus, depending on the school, and W/S makes it easier to do so. Some WS jobs (not all) give you some time to study, too (say you are sitting at a desk at a dorm or library or something, checking people in – during down time you can study). Sometimes lab or professor assistant jobs (graders, etc) are more available for work study, and they can give you access to professors as mentors and look good on your resume upon graduation, too. I’d be hesitant to turn down WS. You don’t HAVE to work all the hours for WS if you get too busy and don’t have time for a job (one of my kids accepted her WS, then just didn’t have time to work, and there were no consequences, she just told the FA office once she figured out that was the case).

Most students are able through summer work to pay more than $1,500 of their expenses. You can earn a couple thousand dollars for sure in the summer if you work. Some students can get summer jobs on campus (which sometimes including housing), and make money there, too. So maybe you don’t have to take out quite as much in loans.

Some students become RAs in dorms to save some money (assuming you are living on campus). But you can’t count on getting an RA spot, they can be pretty competitive. And not everyone is cut out for the RA role.

One thing to watch for is health insurance. If you don’t have health insurance that the college considers adequate coverage while you are on campus, they will ask you to pay for their health insurance plan, and often it is NOT listed in the costs in your FA package. It is usually $1,500 - $2,000 per year if you have to pay for it – so if you do, you would probably be using summer earnings to pay for that. It can be hard to figure out the health insurance – Google for your college and see what their website is. You might have to call someone to figure out if whatever insurance you have now is sufficient, and whether you will need to incur this cost.