5 ms·

School isn't financial suicide if you to an affordable state school and take out public loans unless you plan on getting a degree that will add no earning power

School isn't financial suicide if you to an affordable state school and take out public loans unless you plan on getting a degree that will add no earning power. And even then, if you don't make much, you will qualify for income based repayment, which means you will never have to pay back more than 10% of your disposable income (any income over 1.5x the federal poverty limit). If you want to go even cheaper, try community college for the firs 2 years.

non-entity 7y ago
But if I'm only receiving a couple thousand in aid, that's still a lot of money that has to resort to loans (from what I understand public loans are limited in the amount you can take no?) Community college would be much cheaper yes, but if you're a working adult,you'll likely only have a handful of times you can take classes, dragging it out more than 2 years.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Community colleges tend to make classes more available after normal work hours specifically because their customers have lives.
- learc83 7y ago
  For a dependent student it's $5,500 for the first year, which is more than enough to pay for community college. And it goes up significantly each year and way up once you are considered independent it goes up even more (lifetime max of $57k which is more than enough to pay for tuition and fees at most state schools). Also the dependent student caps don't count if your parents can't qualify for a PLUS loan. >Community college would be much cheaper yes, but if you're a working adult,you'll likely only have a handful of times you can take classes, dragging it out more than 2 years. As another poster pointed out community colleges tend to have plenty of classes available. And during the first few years when you take intro classes you'll likely have no problem finding classes at any time, and most states have online classes available for intro subjects. Additional if you go for something like and engineering or CS degree you can do coops and internships where you'd earn a good bit more than most people can make working in their early 20s (while getting course credit and relevant experience).

non-entity 7y ago

But if I'm only receiving a couple thousand in aid, that's still a lot of money that has to resort to loans (from what I understand public loans are limited in the amount you can take no?) Community college would be much cheaper yes, but if you're a working adult,you'll likely only have a handful of times you can take classes, dragging it out more than 2 years.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Community colleges tend to make classes more available after normal work hours specifically because their customers have lives.
learc83 7y ago
For a dependent student it's $5,500 for the first year, which is more than enough to pay for community college. And it goes up significantly each year and way up once you are considered independent it goes up even more (lifetime max of $57k which is more than enough to pay for tuition and fees at most state schools). Also the dependent student caps don't count if your parents can't qualify for a PLUS loan. >Community college would be much cheaper yes, but if you're a working adult,you'll likely only have a handful of times you can take classes, dragging it out more than 2 years. As another poster pointed out community colleges tend to have plenty of classes available. And during the first few years when you take intro classes you'll likely have no problem finding classes at any time, and most states have online classes available for intro subjects. Additional if you go for something like and engineering or CS degree you can do coops and internships where you'd earn a good bit more than most people can make working in their early 20s (while getting course credit and relevant experience).