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Originally Posted by justme920
Alrighty, well this fall I will be a senior, and I just got my SAT scores back and found out that I qualify for automatic admissions at Texas A&M (my dream school). . . i am aware of and fine with the fact that student loans and debt is an unavoidable part of my future. . . I know it may be a smidge early to worry about this, but I'm just a worrier by nature. Thanks for your help!  |
Quote:
Originally Posted by sarahsmilehawk
I'm a pell grant recipient and I'm in a sorority. It's not easy. And honestly, it's not smart. I shouldn't have gone through recruitment at all, and I have really struggled to pay for the cost of a sorority, even with a LOT of loans. But I really, really wanted to be in a sorority and now I can't imagine not being in one. . . If you can get federal loans, do it. Private loans are much higher interest and will haunt you for 20+ years.
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Originally Posted by ausguals
Trust me...loans do NOT follow what you spend the money on, because all they care about is the interest they get when you pay it back. . . Just make sure it is something you are REALLY finding worth doing...depending on your chapter, dues can be HIGH and sometimes taking out that much more of a loan will be something you regret in the long run...taking out debt for a sorority is a huge decision.
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I am impressed, justme920, that you are mature enough to be weighing financial implications as a high school junior. You are a smart girl with a good head on your shoulders (and you are not worrying about this too early.) We need people like you in the greek system.
Having said that, however, I really hope that you carefully weigh the advice of the posters before me. Belonging to a sorority on top of paying for college costs can get terribly expensive. I really worry about kids getting out of school these days with overwhelming school loans. Will the degree that you are pursuing prepare you for a fairly lucrative career? You really need to crunch the numbers. If you get out earning only, say, $35K a year and you have $50K in student loans, that can be very discouraging and take a seeming eternity to pay off. And remember, government student loans are not bankruptable. They will follow you forever.
We are probably all aware of girls that have deactivated because the financial costs have been too high. That's not a good situation for either the girl or the house.
Certainly just because you
can get additional loan money does not necessarily mean that you
should. You need to very carefully consider the additional enjoyment of belonging to a sorority vs. the years of paying off the loans that will follow. Good luck to you.