<p>Yes, and most students shouldn’t be graduating from any school with that much debt. And if you’re posting that to try to point out that I’m being hypocritical, it’s not working. With scholarship and an EFC of full tuition at any school in the US, being at NYU isn’t hurting me. However, in many cases it does. And it’s cases like that where students need to be more careful of where it is they choose to attend. In many cases however though, the parents need to make the call. Because face it, at 18, many students have no idea what $50,000 worth of debt is like. They think they’ll just go to college, graduate and be able to pay it off. But, that’s not the case. $50,000 of debt is a substantial amount.</p>
<p>And yes, it is possible to get “shut out”, but it’s highly unlikely. And while yes, it may seem irrational to some people on CC. It is fact the OP’s parents money and they get to do with it as they choose. Would it be good to have schools in the 30-40 range (ranked by USNews), yes, of course. But, college is a long-term investment and has to be done carefully. It’s perfectly understandable to not to want to pay $250,000 to go to a not as highly reputable school. While I would recommend including schools in the 30-40 range, I would agree with OP’s parents and say that if OP were to get into any of the T20s (assuming he applied to many and did in fact write good applications) that OP should, most likely, attend said T20. Again because it is the parents money; it is their investment. And given the state of the economy, it’s hard to argue against their common sense.</p>