Reply to Middle class families - Are you willing to take on a ton of debt for a top college?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Middle class families - Are you willing to take on a ton of debt for a top college?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Such an interesting thread.  For those of us in the doughnut hole (over $180K HHI so no need based aid) but not rich enough to spend $280K for four years especially if there is a risk of student not graduating in four years in which case you could end up spending $350K it is not an easy decision.
We expect to have $180K saved when ds goes to college and can fund another $15K a year bringing what we can comfortably fund to $240K.  So, within striking distance.  Even if we can afford it though,what is making this a difficult decision is that ds wants to go to med school.  He is a very good student (NMSF caliber) and I expect he could get into one of the top 20 colleges/universities but as we know these don't offer merit aid.
Scenario 1: send him to UMD (honors college) which means we barely touch the college savings acct. and we will have enough to pay for 2-3 years of med school.
Scenario 2: Send him to UMD(honors college)  and he decides against med school and wants to get a Ph.D but the top Ph.D programs mostly accept students from top 20 universities/SLACs
Scenario 3: Send him to a second tier SLAC which does offer merit aid.  He has a good four years but might find getting into either a medical school or a top Ph.D program difficult because of the pedigree of the undergrad. school, the research/internship opportunities available to him.
Scenario 4: Send him to the best school he can get into which positions him well for a Ph.D program or medical school admission and hope the money magically appears.

If I knew for sure that he would still want to become a doctor when he graduates, I would just encourage him to attend UMD honors and save his money for med school.  I guess I wish I could find a group of undergraduate schools that we can afford that would position him well for either career option: medicine or Ph.D[/quote][/quote]

Maybe six year Med school ? https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school/article/medical-schools-offering-combined-undergraduatemd-/[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics