<p>Its all about financial planning to be honest. Just to give you a little background, I graduated from Duke a couple of years back and my sister currently attends Cornell; my parents were able to afford to send me and my sister to these two schools despite the fact that their dual incomes combined would probably be around ~150K a year.</p>
<p>Duke gave us about 15-20K per year in grant money and I paid off 2-3K by doing Work Study which left me with about 15K in undergraduate loans after my parents contributed somewhere between 20-25K per year during my 4 years at Duke.</p>
<p>The loans seemed daunting but through careful financial planning, I am about 8K away from financial freedom when I am only 18 months out of college. I am hoping to aggressively pay off these loans and be debt free by Spring of 2013.</p>
<p>I chose Duke even though I could have attended the University of Michigan (a top 5 public university) for about $20K cheaper over 4 years since I was IS. I thought the quality of education and the access to brilliant peers was worth every penny.</p>
<p>I would apply RD and hope for the best. The FA department at Duke here is extremely approachable and helpful. Now you just have to worry about getting in. :)</p>