I fully understand what a dual degree program is. I also fully understand that folks enrolling in these programs know that they will take 5-6 years to complete and will financially plan accordingly.
I’m pretty unclear on how many semesters you have to complete. I know you said you don’t want any more loans, but if the only way to pay your college bills is to take the Pell and the Direct Loan (assuming you haven’t used the full undergrad aggregate limit already) is the way to go.
If you add $10,000 to your loan balance, you will have about $120 a month or so additional loan payment. So if you then have $62,000 in loans, your payments would be in the $700 a month range. If you get a chemical engineering job, that should be able to be paid.
$52,000 in undergrad loans implies that some of these are private or parent Plus loans…is that accurate?