How are you paying for school?

[lifeincartoonmotion]

I would love to go to Columbia, but I'm very worried about the cost of living there.

[Dreams]

Yeah unless you can secure some significant fellowship or scholarship, you will likely come out with quite some debt from Columbia. A friend of mine and I got in the MSW program there. When he graduated, he was about over 60k in debt. He pays a small mortgage in student loans monthly and I do not envy him at all. After going back and forth with CUSSW for a year, I decided to go else where when I realized that even with the slight increase in aid they gave me, I would still be in significant debt.

There are plenty of major scholarships and loan forgiveness programs out there though. You might want to look into them, as well as employer paid studies in exchange for a small commitment to that organization.