How much are your loans?

bchan1
Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:58:29 +0000

NYU - and other public and private universities (although since NYU haunts the dreams of so many wide eyed 18 year olds we seem to spend a lot of time talking about their FA policies) take the position that the student and the family should know what amount of borrowing is prudent for them and that it is not the school’s obligation to monitor your spending/borrowing habits. This is they free market at work - however, very few families borrow so heavily knowing that in the near future they will inherit or acquire funds to pay off these mega loans. The reality of this free market system is that families do run out of borrowing power - often long before the student in question is eiligible for graduation.

If a school is going to admit a kid and give them a lousy FA package, I think at the very least, they should be required to give a realistic analysis of whether the student will be able to graduate with similar funding over a 4 or 5 year period. Naive kids and parents blinded by glossy marketing campaigns and the power of prestige, need better information about the true financial reality of borrowing for education - not just a pep talk on how this is “good debt” and an “investment in yourself”. If the colleges won’t provide this then the high schools need to find a better method of educating their families during the college search process. It is more important to me that the final outcome (kid gets a degree, a job, is not buried in debt and parents aren’t eating boxed mac&cheese 7 nights a week) than whether the kid get to attend dream school XYZ and make his high school and family look “good”. If the cost is too high, dream school becomes a nightmare from which the entire family cannot escape.

In the OP’s case, younger siblings will be working their way through community college and the OP is likely to have huge debt, no degree and no ability to pay at some point during undergrad years because all funds will have been exhausted early in the game. Some time at community college could help recoup wasted funds and then a transfer to State U could result in the best possible outcome. Sadly, I suspect this semester has cost the OP and family not only the large debt they now have, but the opportunity for good funding at a state school that was not as highly regarded in the romantic whirl of college application/selection during the OP’s senior year of high school.