we’re not even close to admissions process yet - and I agree, I really don’t want to take out loans or have my kids take out loans and don’t even know if we’d have to consider it. But IF my kid got into dream school, and we were say, 20k short due to not having cash saved and financial aid package from school being 20k short, I wanted to clarify that we or kid could take out loans for that amount IF we wanted to. That’s why I was confused about the article - it seemed to be saying there was no way child could go to the dream school because tehre wasn’t enough financial aid. And I thought that IF you were willing to take out loans, they would be available. Not saying that is a good option at all but people do it. I had to do it for law school, and yes it was painful, but it enabled me to go to my “dream school” 25 years ago.