I know you said A&M is your dream school, so I don't know if my experience will be at all worth writing about.
Ironically, A&M was my first choice, but I was from out of state and the cost was prohibitive. I instead went to a state school on scholarship (which I know isn't an option for everyone, but bear with me) and even had I lost the scholarship I would have had a tiny fraction of the expense that A&M would have been.
And I don't regret that decision for a second.
To each her own, and I am not saying that it's bad to have loans. But as someone who got a fantastic education and a wonderful experience in every way in college, and as someone who got a good job immediately upon graduation with $0 student loan debt, I can tell you firsthand that there are options to going to the big name school. I cried my eyes out when I was 17 and had to make the decision to go to a school that I only applied to as a last resort. But 5 years later with degree in hand I was as happy as I could be, and again, I don't have a single regret. Not having that loan payment helped me out a lot once when money was really tight - it would have meant the difference between paying the rent or not.
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