Your undergrad debt?

[Tim Haas]

Hello. I know these posts have gone around a lot, but maybe i'm not looking hard enough thru the search feature....but...

I was wondering how everyone was claiming that they were only 15-30k in debt after undergrad, with some even going to private schools.

I just don't get this. I did one year so far am in debt 15k cuz of private schooling and in the end i'll probably be in debt 60k at least by the end of undergrad. The thing is, i'm poor. I live w/ my mom, bro and sis and she doesn't make 30k a year even. Last year i made like 5k. So...I don't understand how people are getting off only paying so little when i'm getting screwed so incredibly. Is there a secret here or something, or are most of you paying off a lot of your undergrad right away rather than just taking out 100% loans and such(of course after your scholarships and grants come in)?

Also, does anyone know some good references for scholarships and grants for undergrads preparing for med school?

Thanks a lot

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[Hercules]

I think the secrets are scholarships and working your way through school. I worked my way through undergrad and finished up about 15K in the hole. My wife (who is much smarter than I am) actually finished undergrad up with +15K without working much at all.

If I had it to do over though, I would not have worked a single day/night in undergrad and just taken out more student loans. Once you get into 6 figure debt in med school a couple extra thousand doesn't seem all that unreasonable. In all honesty there's not enough of a difference to me between owing 140K and 160-170K to justify working in college. I would have much rather enjoyed the free time and been more active in all of the extracurriculars offered in college.

My 2 cents.

 

[southerndoc]

Yep, scholarships and grants are key. I paid nothing for college, including books.

 

[tlew12778]

I graduated undergrad with $17k in debt. I graduated one semester early which makes an approximate $5k difference.

I had maxed out stafford and perkins loans throughout undergrad. I also did work study but that actually does not get factored into tuition costs as it only provided some cash for living expenses (ie. the phone bill and meals on the weekends when only 1 caf. was open and no one wanted to treck across campus to get there). My school (private, cost was $34k a year when I was a frosh and $36k a year when I graduated). My finaid package was made up of 1) loans 2) parental contribution determined by the FAFSA 3) grants by the school to make up the difference btwn 1+2 and actual tuition and costs. The grants were thanks to the fact that my school was (and still is) very well endowed and puts a high priority of financing students' educations.

 

[bw07]

I ended up with about 14.5K debt after 4 years at Northwestern. The school is pretty good about giving out grants and I had outside scholarships as well (8k/yr). I think it depends a lot on how much money your school has for free aid. Northwestern has expanded its endowment pool for financial aid pretty significantly so a lot of people I knew came out with under 30 k in loans

 

[Tim Haas]

Yeah, I went to a 30k a year school this past year, and they gave me a 15k grant cuz im poor. I got a 1k scholarship from outside too so that helped...but i ended up w/ like 14k in loans...which that sucks. So after one year, im 14k in the hole....

I guess i need to apply for more scholarships or something...any suggestions for getting some for this fall? I know it's fairly late tho....


Thanks again

 

[taehong81]

My school basically give a big grant that covered all my tuition and then I worked and my parents helped out little for room and board. I ended up borrowing 18 grand for four years, which isn't too bad for going to an expensive private school