I have been offered admissions to three pretty amazing programs...
University of Houston, NYU & USC (they are ranked in reverse order in my mind as well as by world news)
I have about 22k worth of student loan debt from my undergraduate degree which will continue to accrue more and more interest, and here is my issue: These programs don't tend to offer a lot of scholarships, as they are surely limited. I have received some financial assistance from all of them but not enough to really even make a dent in my overall debt post-masters.
I'm looking at like 80K-90K after it's all over from UH, roughly 30K more to go to NYU & then you know like 70K more to attend USC. The numbers ARE frightening. However, with a concentration in mental health/systems of recovery from mental health, I'm looking at a lot of debt no matter what.
The larger problem here stands as is: My starting salary will be highest in CA (39K for entry level social workers), my debt will also be highest in CA, I will never be able to pay off the total amount of debt from ANY of these schools so in fact, I have come to the conclusion that my starting salary in whatever place is actualized to irrelevance- even in the best of circumstances, after 10 years I will have only stopped interest from accruing. I'm pretty much stumped here because as a Social Worker, there is the option to pursue loan forgiveness after 10 years if you work for a nonprofit or government agency full-time.
In my mind, I'm just trying to get these ducks all in a row before I just go balls to the wall and say hey, you know, I'm going way under even at the cheapest of the three universities and I'll be committing myself to the loan forgiveness program even there, so why not just go balls to the wall with loan debt and go to the school my heart is REALLY longing for (USC). As I'm frightened of the prospects of committing myself NOW to something that is 10 years down the road, I feel like I don't have a choice where that is concerned because I'm pretty much SCREWED into massive amounts of debt no matter where I choose to attend. I pretty much just want to know others' thoughts on this/if anyone else has been dealt similar cards.
XOXO Royally screwed, but I'm still following my heart.