Financial Aid=HUH??

sgc914
Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:15:54 +0000

thanks for your help, and I have stafford loans but in the total of 2,176 (this is before national merit; the FA officer I talked to said they would deduct that from this number). Then I have unsubsidized stafford (mostly this) and PLUS loans in the amount of 32,695.
I was very surprised with my package. My mom keeps rounding up my 4 year total to 160k and saying they could buy a house with it though. (my mom is the queen of putdowns…) However, one thing is that I am signing up for the BPE program, so I have to factor in travel and living costs abroad.

And guys, I think if you have to take out 25-40k in loans a year, and a public university is offering you a better financial aid alternative, I think you have a really hard decision ahead of you. It really is a lot of debt. If you read any of the recent magazine articles they all advise against it (I think you can tell I am a fan of magazine articles lol); for example, there was an article about a girl who was about to go to UPenn but started seriously considering Ohio State because she planned on medical school. Her parents were both doctors and even though they had grown-up college kids they were still paying off their own med school loans.

My mom may make me feel like crap sometimes but I know they are capable of affording tuition, and my sympathies go out to everyone who has to make a really difficult decision based on finaid. I hope the info on the tax credits and interest deductions helped somewhat, but they are only for 2 years and if your loans exceed that amount by crazy then I’m not sure if it will help much in the long run.