<p>Thanks for the high quality advice! Although I like Cal (including reasons other than reputation), I realize that up to 100K debt (which my parents would not help pay) would not be the best way to start a career. The idea that “a good student at either of these schools is much more likely to get into a good grad school than he or she is to land a job that makes paying back $80K in loans comfortable” is eye-opening. I also found that due to budget cuts in the UC system less students have been graduating in four years.<br>
However there is one other consideration. At my high school there are college level classes that allowed me to obtain transferable credits through the University of Colorado at Denver. These credits in combination with credits from AP tests add up to 50 college credits. With these credits I could potentially skip intro classes in order to graduate early, use the additional time to obtain multiple degrees, or “re-take” the classes in college to solidify material and increase GPA. Would it be possible to utilize these credits at Cal to negate the high cost? Is it a good idea to skip out of classes at Cal/CU that may be more in depth than their high school counterpart?</p>