Student loan documentary

[rebel100]

I'm about to go into debt for student loans for my daughter. She's graduating high school next week, got accepted to a couple of good schools that offered zero aid, so we had to tell her she couldn't go. She's in IB so has some college credits under her belt (we won't know how many until test scores come back) but she's going to a UC that offered some aid. The closest CC to us is over an hour away, closest Cal State is 45 minutes away, and she doesn't have a car. This UC doesn't accept CLEP or DSST. We're still going to have to pay maybe 15K but it's all relative; so much less than the 60K dream school we had to tell her she couldn't attend.
Part of it is my ignorance, I made her apply to a Cal State as a safety school, not realizing that they only accept some figure like 11% of qualified applicants. Didn't realize it was such a popular school. Now Cal States have frozen applications for winter and next year, waiting to see what congress does to their budgets. She also felt like she had busted her butt so hard these past few years in IB, that going to a "lesser" school made it all seem like a waste.

Why not let her do the first two years via distance? You can pay cash for an AA/AS at a place like New Mexico Junior College and she could just stay home (or attend there for a semester or two they have on campus housing and its really quite affordable). Once done with that re-visit where she will finish up.

This is a great learning moment for your family...do some research and figure it out. $15K is a huge yoke around her neck...is that a total figure for 4 years or an annual projection? Are you expecting to pay it for her or letting her take on the repayment responsibility?