How much money in loans can you get?

First, determine if your education is worth upwards of $160,000 dollars! What kind of program are you going to go into and are you going to be able to repay those loans.

After that, yes you can get those kinds of loans. I would think real hard before I spent close to 200K on an education.

Interesting advice from my sister. She is a PhD and works in higher education administration.

I was lamenting the cost of school as I have a child that will soon be graduating high school. She informed me that by law (at least here in Texas) that all junior college credits are directly transferable as traditional college credit plus having attended junior college (assuming your grades are good) act in your favor for admission to traditional universities.

So… you can go to a cheap junior college and knock out two years of course work, use the experience to help get accepted to a traditional school, and then only have to pay tuition for two years at the high priced institution and come out in the end with the same degree in the same time period for a whole heck of a lot less money. As she put it “There is nothing on your bachelor’s degree that indicates that some of your credits were taken at a junior college.”

@YoBob that’s pretty incredible. I never heard of that! Wish I had that info several years ago!

@YoBob And that’s true for most, if not all, states. However, it is important to note that a) many colleges have a minimum amount of credits for each major that must be completed at that school, often going over 2 years (especially for majors like architecture, engineering, etc, and less so for majors like English), and b) that almost all transfer students are not able to get their bachelors in 4 years, as so many credits don’t transfer properly. It’s much more likely that you will spend 2 years a a CC and then 3 or 4 years at the expensive school. It’s also becoming more likely that all students, transfer or not, will take more than 4 years to complete the course work required for a bachelors. So it’s often better to take just one year’s worth at a CC of Guaranteed Transfer classes that the expensive school will require (and you should check with them) instead of two years at a CC, but one of those years is just useless elective credits that don’t count towards any other requirements.

@letmeknow17 The loans you were offered were 11k, or the grants offered were 11k? If that’s all the federal government offered in total financial assistance, that’s all you’re going to get from them. What was your Expected Family Contribution? You can get private student loans to make up the rest of your tuition, but cannot borrow more than your COA from anyone and everyone combined. So if you get 11k from Stafford loans, you can then only get 29k in private loans, not another 40k.

Do not do it, I beg you. You will be hard pressed to find a job that will help you pay off your loans with a bachelor’s degree… I don’t have $40,000 in student loans for my whole college career, and I was on the extended program, and I didn’t work…

You can go to a GREAT state school for MUCH less than that!

Please don’t ask this question. Rather, ask, “should I pay 40K a year for an education when I have no money, or can I get an equivalent education for 6k a year”

Or at least listen to @yobob and go to a community college for the first couple. That should cost you pennies comparatively! Trust, you will be grateful in the future.

Please listen to mrrich724!! I didn’t listen to the financial aid counselors who warned me about the consequences of student loan debt and instead listened to my friends who were bragging about how much money they were going to make after graduation. Being the first one in my family to go to college, I had no idea what it took to be one of those grads who garnered the high salaries and in the end I wasn’t one of them!! I was the average student, who got the average job and am now paying back student loan debt equivalent to my monthly mortgage payment. I literally could have bought a second house with what I am paying for my student loans and I will literally be paying my student loans for life (I went to graduate school). And believe me, I am one of the lucky ones because I can afford to pay my student loans and still live a normal life. Without the student loan, I would be living incredibly well (financially), but again, I am still lucky because there are many others who are forced to live in poverty because of their student loans. There is little relief for people that can’t pay (no bankruptcy) and many people decide they cannot afford to have children because of their student loan debt. Please don’t become one of those people!! In my experience, plenty of people have made it big without coming from a fancy school – you just have to work harder and smarter. I wish someone would have given me this advice!

If your grades are good, do not forget to investigate private foundations that offer student scholarship loans. Some charge no interest and you start repaying a year or two after graduation but can defer if you go on to graduate school. Some charge the going lowest rate of interest and again you don’t start repaying until a couple of years after graduation.