As I read the comments, especially about the student loans scam, it raised the question: where is or was her school’s guidance department and/or your niece’s parents over the past four years? She’s graduating next month and only now looking at what her options are?
Her school’s guidance department should have a profile on each student. They should have had enough information by her sophomore year to know where she would and would not be accepted and even have discouraged her gently from trying a school way over her head. It’s imho educational malpractice.
And at some point it’s up to parents to talk with their kids early on about what they will and will not be able to afford for their college, not leave it as a last minute surprise. I’ve seen kids with sky high SATs (East Coast equivalent of ACT), superb GPA’s, Merit Scholarship semifinalists, and a boatload of AP credits who were accepted to Ivy League schools and the parents (after letting the kid apply) say no dice. Conversely, I’ve seen students with the same credentials whose parents told them from h.s. freshman year forward: you are going to a state school. I’d say the latter are better off.
The absolute worst thing is to burden a kid with that debt, especially from anything less than a top ranked school. That is nothing less than a sin.
Well she pinned all her hopes in going to the U. of A. and she is also very athletic in cheerleding, one of tops around.
But my sister and her husband did not do enough to get her ready or themselves either.
Times passes to quickly and all of a sudden she’s graduating.
No one was thinking what the real cost of going to college might be.
So here we are.