I’m a senior and going to a CC isn’t really possible for a lot of complicated reasons. My parents have known/expected I’d need to take out loans and are adamant about splitting the costs with me, so I’m not trying to avoid loans completely. I’m trying to appeal my aid award, but if that doesn’t work out, the cost of attendance for me is around $20,000.
I’ll have around $5,000 saved by the start of classes, I plan on taking out the $5,500 in loans I was offered, and my parents (mom) offered to take out $5,000 in ParentPlus loans that she isn’t expecting me to pay back. She says it won’t be a problem due to her retirement savings/the fact that she will be moving into our already paid-off family home after graduation which puts a lot of extra money in her pocket. (I will, of course, pay her back eventually as an adult). This leaves about $5,000/year in out of pocket costs for my parents and I to split evenly which is affordable for us.
All of this means I’ll personally have around $12-$15,000 in student loan debt when I graduate. This isn’t impossible to pay off in a decent time frame, is it? I hear of people graduating with up to $20-$50,000 in student loan debt so I’m assuming it should be doable, but I could just be naive about the whole thing.