But Rice would adjust need based aid once fewer students are in college (undergrad).
OP is taking a gamble with schools where he doesn’t have direct-admit to his major.
OP also needs to check if schools have a requirement that freshmen and sophomores live on campus.
I didn’t think I needed to mention it, but just like my siblings, I do plan to live from home for a year or two after college. (That’s how the pay off their debt so quickly) and there seem to be a lot of engineering opportunities in the dfw area so it shouldn’t be a stretch to work for a few years. (unless I get some kind of really cool job very far away).
Afterwards, I’d like a roommate because (in my opinion) living alone is terrible and boring. (or… at least to me) at least when I start off living alone.
@MYOS1634 I’m aware of that risk, and It is definitely something that I’ll be weighting in my admissions decision. And… I would try working over the summer (thats kinda my brother’s main condition) to pay it off. I just can’t do that sophomore and junior year because I want to earn an internships or do research over the summer before I graduate.
@mommdc that is actually why TAMU is so expensive for the first year. If I took say a 3k loan for the first year, I could move out of a dorm and into an apartment and have an extra $1000 in personal loans to work with and not need to take a loan from him again
Sample
Tuition Room ____ boarTotal My max personal loan
1st Y 12000 ____ 6200 ____ 2460__ 20400 5500
2nd Y _12000 _ 3600 ____ __________15600 6500
(If I borrowed 6k, or less, for the first year, the need for me to borrow will disappear for the second year because college station itself is a pretty affordable place to live assuming I win no scholarships at all. That’s why, financially speaking, I think Tamu is still worth the gamble of considering. And My siblings won’t be leaaving until my junior year of college anyways, so I have time to build up summer savings if I need to after freshman year.
If you payoff what brother cosigns with summer earnings, how do you make the “student contrib for summer earnings” that the colleges expect? You have the example of siblings managing, but this seems like one big swirl of debt.
You asked how much debt is too much. I would say any debt is too much. Just starting out with work after college, you want to be as nimble and mobile as possible. Anticipating living at home for multiples of years is too complex for my mind. What if you want to get married? What if you get a great job offer far from home? What if the great job offer is good for experience but poor for pay? Etc.
I don’t know how much engineers make. The internet says the median career is 70K. Just say your first job is 50K. You would owe ~$11K in federal income tax (don’t forget state income tax). Figure a minimum of $6K for health insurance and expenses. Now you have living expenses of 33K. Subtract 5K for car and insurance = 28K. Living on 1K a month (rent, insurance, utilities) for a long period of time after graduating into a professional career would be no fun, but suppose you could manage - now you have 14K left. At some point, you will need some food and wine - say 5K per year - now you are at 9K left. Take a vacation for 2K leaves you 7K. You should save for retirement maximally as soon as possible. The maximum Roth IRA annual contribution is 5.5K (note that is ~10% of your after tax income).
You now have $1500 for every other conceivable contingency. If you spent it all on paying down college debt over a 10 year time span at 5% interest then you could afford a total of ~$12K in student debt for all 4 years. Don’t forget to never date or have children.
So anything you can do to avoid taking on debt would be to your future advantage.
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I didn’t think I needed to mention it, but just like my siblings, I do plan to live from home for a year or two after college. (That’s how the pay off their debt so quickly) and there seem to be a lot of engineering opportunities in the dfw area so it shouldn’t be a stretch to work for a few years. (unless I get some kind of really cool job very far away).
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You have no idea if you’ll even stay as an Eng’g major. Most freshman eng’g majors end up changing majors because either they don’t do well in the classes or they discover that they just don’t like it. Being smart isn’t enough.
Also, you have no idea if you’ll be in a relationship once you graduate from college. that could mean that you won’t want to live with mom and dad then. You may want to live with or in the area where your beloved lives/works.
What about other schools that will give you more merit for your stats? Apply to Miss State. very good eng’g and very generous with merit. An ACT 30 might get free tuition or more.
The year our S graduated in engineering (2010), many of his classmates had NO job offers. It’s tough to KNOW that you will have a full time job offer that you can begin upon graduation and that you will actually get a degree in engineering. I agree that the least debt is the best. It gives you many more options!
Federal income tax in 2016 for a single taxpayer claiming the standard deduction and one exemption would be $5,683.75 on $50,000 AGI. And with likely pre-tax deductions for health, dental, vision, retirement, etc. that $50k salary shrinks down to $40-something-k AGI.
You can add $3,825 in SS and Medicare but you are still short of $11,000 unless you add state taxes.
http://www.tax-rates.org/income-tax-calculator/
You’d probably need to be in a state with significant state income tax for a $50,000 income to pay around $11,000 in federal income tax + FICA + state income tax (FICA = payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare).
It is also common for engineering employers to substantially subsidize benefits like medical insurance for employees. New graduates considering jobs should carefully check the benefits when comparing compensation, since the cost of medical insurance without any employer subsidy (or with a lesser employer subsidy, needing a greater employee contribution) can be substantial (several thousand dollars per year for a basic individual plan on ACA exchanges; if ACA is repealed, individual plans will become an unknown, and may not be available at all to those with pre-existing conditions). $50,000 with employer subsidized full benefits (particularly medical insurance) is a lot more valuable than $50,000 without any employer subsidized benefits.
^not really. In PA state tax is 3.07% +1% for local tax +7.65% soc sec and medicare = 11.72%
For $50,000 income that would be $5,860
Add to that the $5,700 federal tax and you have about $11,500 in taxes alone.
Of course if you have pretax retirement or heath deductions your taxable income would be reduced.
One never knows what situation happens where the debt is a lot more of a burden than what you are thinking.
Hello! I want to revive this thread recently because I like my situation a lot more now.
I recently won about 21k in outside scholarships for my first year, and 11k for my following years of college. At most of the schools I applied for, I can attend with 10k debt or less. However, If I attend Texas A&M, my dream school, I will need to take out maybe 16k in loans. None of which will be in my parent’s name or my brothers name.
My goal is to earn a 4.0 GPA so I can win a continuing student scholarship and if I fail, I need to maintain a 3.1 to keep my scholarships.
So… advice!
Do you recommend I take the full ride to anywhere else I applied (University of Hawaii - Manoa, Texas Tech University, Prarieview, Trinity, University of Houston, or University of Texas at Dallas)
Or
Should I stay at A&M with about 16k in debt unless I can pull off a 4.0 in Engineering.
I’d go with Trinity first, then Texas Tech or UH or UTD, definitely, especially if you have a full ride!
You can’t borrow $10k/year. If you have a full ride, take it.
NOTE : Maybe I wasn’t clear, my first year is completely covered and I would be borrowing 16k over the remaining 3 years. So roughly In actuality I’d be borrowing about 4k for the 2nd year, 5k for the 3rd year, and 7k for the final.
I’ll break down the loan amounts (incase more information is needed). I Say “full ride” because I can cover the total cost. But I just realized that isn’t what the word actually means!
(Free) University of Hawaii - Manoa
(8k) Texas Tech University
(Free)Prarieview
(6k) Trinity
(10k)University of Houston
(10k) University of Texas at Dallas
(16k) Texas A&M
@MYOS1634 Thanks for the insight! May main qualm with Trinity was how they only have one engineering degree(I’d like to see other majors if possible), however it will be duly noted!
@austinmshauri Sorry for not being clear. The 10k debt is also for the entire 4 years, but your info is also really helpful!
I don’t think Hawaii will be free because of the cost of transportation. The others are close enough that I think you should choose which one you like best.
Looks like they are all within your ability to borrow with federal direct loans without cosigner. You can borrow less if you earn sufficient money during the summer or part time during the school year.
Question you need to ask yourself for each school: Are you directly admitted to your major? If not, how difficult will it be to get into your desired major?
Texas A&M admits all engineering frosh to a general pre-engineering program. Students who earn a 3.5 GPA may choose any engineering major and be automatically admitted, but others face competitive admission by GPA and essays (note: 3.5 GPA in college is harder than 3.5 GPA in high school). See https://engineering.tamu.edu/academics/advisors-procedures/entry-to-a-major .
Then, since all are affordable, choose your favorite, TAMU !
Note however that at TAMU you’ll e competing to get into a major and may not get the one you want. the risk is real, it’s up to you to decide whether you’ll still like TAMU if you’re not in MechE.
It’s very hard to double major with engineering, although you can try to add a minor, but I cannot imagine you would be able to graduate with two engineering specialties in 4 or even 5 years.