<prompt> Human: My daughter is a senior in HS. Weve given her a budget of 100K, which is enough for a state school. But she is considering other schools, some of which cost 70K a year. Anything over her budget will require her to take out student loans. What advice would you give her about taking on debt to pay for college?  <response>: Dont do it. Anecdotal advice, but a member of my team at work opted to go to a private school rather than our state college and managed to rack up 150K in debt while doing so to get just a bachelors degree.She is now 25 years old, makes about 50Kyear not much in metro NYC, which is where we live and is, basically, drowning in her own debt. She lives with her parents and is on their insurance, at least until next year, shell lose that next year and have even more expenses in her life, drives one of their beater cars because she cannot afford her own and does very little in the way of travelsocializing because she simply cannot afford it, nor can her parents help as her father ran into some significant health issues her senior year and is now on permanent disability and, even working two jobs, her mother can barely keep the family afloat, nevermind help this girl with loans.Its a crappy life, one that will likely not change for a long while and all her own doing.One other caveat, some of these private college will give you a great, enticing financial aid package your first year and then, once youre in the school, suddenly the grants and scholarships you had are supposedly no longer funded and you all of a sudden have to take out loans to cover the difference. Ummm, no thanks. I personally think college should be required by law to commit to a FOUR YEAR financial plan when a student enrolls and stop playing this shell game that so many do. Its disgusting.010 do NOT recommend. 