Hamilton vs. Harvard Financial Example Forum

[pinkzeppelin]

I thought this might be useful to some people making the decision between a full-ride somewhere and another package elsewhere. I was offered the Hamilton at Columbia and offered ~19000 from Harvard in grants. Initially, I made the silly assumption of "Law School costs about $200,000." With that assumption, Columbia should cost $200,000-$161,000=$39,000 and Harvard should cost $200,000-$57,000=$143,000. It turns out that these were both huge underestimates. The cost of attending Columbia, even with the Hamilton is nearly $90,000 according to my estimates, and the additional cost of the Harvard degree is $100,000. Yikes!

Anyway, I made this fairly simple loan projection using both the financial packages I received from Columbia and Harvard and the information from their websites. I assume 4% increase in tuition and cost of living each year, and I assume loan and grant eligibility remain constant all three years. (Meaning that any increase in tuition and cost of living goes directly to the higher interest GradPLUS loans). In addition, the calculations assume that the loans are given as a lump sum at the beginning of the year because I was too lazy to stagger the distribution by 5 months. This means that these estimates are probably 1-2% higher than they should be.

Here is a screenshot of the spreadsheet:


Here is a link to the spreadsheet in case you want to edit it:
http://www.filedropper.com/lawschoolcos ... rojections

I hope this can help other TLSers make wise financial decisions. I'm currently graduating from undergrad with 0 debt, and I admit I'm frightened to see these numbers.

[pwyoung]

but but but... it's Harvard

[Knock]

Interesting. Which way you leaning OP?

[gerbal]

I'm curious. If you live very frugally and end up not using all of your loans, can you pay off some of your loans using that savings? or will it be deducted from your grants somehow?

[vanwinkle]

I'm curious. If you live very frugally and end up not using all of your loans, can you pay off some of your loans using that savings? or will it be deducted from your grants somehow?

Good luck living frugally near either school.

[rundoxierun]

I'm curious. If you live very frugally and end up not using all of your loans, can you pay off some of your loans using that savings? or will it be deducted from your grants somehow?

Good luck living frugally near either school.

TBF, you can easily save 15-20k(over the 3 years) off the Harvard Room/Board estimate without being all that frugal.