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[copperbadge]

This post was checked for broken links and updated in February of 2017, but some information may still be inaccurate. This is intended as a guide; if you find the information below is in contradiction to the government websites that are meant to guide you through this process, the government is (slightly) more likely to be accurate.So, I was

Comments

[sausage_lunatic]

Hi! I'm kind of a lurker. But I had a question for you and the cafe in general.
As a senior in high school, I get to the whole process of figuring out how to pay for college. This includes, of course, deciding how much (if any) student loans I should get. The process you described looks pretty nifty ( kudos to you for figuring it all out in an easy-to-understand manner), but I was wondering if you had any advice: should I take out huge loans to pay for a high quality education? Was it worth it for you? Do you regret anything regarding them? Any input you have would helpful.

[copperbadge]

I think it really is a personal choice. I loved my undergrad, and I wouldn't take sixty grand to lose those four years. But other people feel differently; some thrive in different environments. And now I'm a receptionist, so...the purely financial return on investment was not perhaps the best. I also wouldn't have wanted to be an undergraduate in the place I was a grad student; it was huge and a little scary for me, so I stuck to my little corner of it. But other people LOVE the diversity you can get there.

The best thing I can recommend to you is to visit schools, even if you only get to local ones, and see which atmosphere and structure you prefer.

[r_ganymede]

I'm just a random person and I'm sure others feel differently, but... yeah, I regret taking out loans to go to college.

If I could do it all over again, if I still decided to go to college, I would go to community college the first two years while working. It's really easy to get a high GPA at a community college and usually not very difficult to transfer to a four-year college afterward.

The quality of the education I got in those two years was far lesser than that of the average community college simply due to the class sizes of the freshman/sophomore courses (300, 400, sometimes even 500+ students). This was at a supposedly very good state school. Paying more won't result in a better education

[eponymousanon]

These are very good points as well. One exception I would make is that higher-tier schools can be snobby about community college transfer students; I had comm. college credits that didn't transfer to the school I went to my freshman year, and some schools limit the number of transfer students they take in favor of freshmen who will pay for a full four years of expensive education. If you go that route, make sure to check your favored university's policies on transfer students for admission and financial aid

[gracie_musica]

That sounds sort of "TL;DR, I'll just go broke paying student loans".

[copperbadge]

Well, actually, it's more "If you'd like to have lower payments and potentially have thousands of dollars taken off your loans, read this".

Thanks though, 'cause I didn't put any work into that or anything.

[gracie_musica]

I'm sorry, I mistyped. I didn't mean to insult you.

What I meant was that the powers that be are obviously making it INCREDIBLY difficult for people to lower their loan repayments. It seems like they're doing this so people will just give up and not even bother trying to go through the steps.

You doing that makes it a ton easier for people to actually do instead of defaulting on their loans and effing up their credit (and all the fun things that come with that).

[copperbadge]

Ohhhh, gotcha!

Sorry, having a cranky night.

It is a lot of TLDR, except in order to find the one little nugget you need, you have to read it all *groans*

[gaudysalamander]

Christ that's a convoluted process. My hat is off to you, sir, for figuring it out.

[annemjw]

God I love New Zealand. Yay for my interest-free loan! And then yay again for the cheap price of education here. I was lucky enough to have my parents pay my undergrad students, but even if they hadn't my loan would still only total NZ$22,000.

[ida_pea]

Thank you for posting this; it's going to be my next project: lowering my loans to an amount my laid-off self can actually afford to pay! Three cheers for Sam!