Will I, as a CS student, be allowed to take loans for paying the fees of Ivy Leagues?
This article gives the very good advice to simply contact one of the schools in question and ask how to apply for financial aid as an international applicant.  Most Ivy League schools admit so many international students that they will have answers to any financial question you can imagine.  They may even already explain the financial aid process online. I would be surprised if a bank cared about an undergraduate major. Usually, such things are only important if it is a professional degree, like a law degree or medical degree. The big issue is that if you are not a US citizen, a US bank would be unlikely to make an unsecured loan because you could just return to your country and renege on the loan and they would have no way to collect. Therefore, a bank in your own country might be more logical. If you get accepted by a top Ivy school, they all have financial policies that will allow you to attend regardless of how rich or poor you are, so if you are applying to a top school (Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Yale) and get accepted, they will fully finance your attendance. The only exception is if (A) they find out you lied about something, or (B) your parents/family are wealthy and they refuse to pay anything. As long as neither of these two things is true, all of the schools listed GUARANTEE they will provide sufficient financial aid. Princeton even has a no-loan policy, which means not only will they fund your attendance, they will do so without you having to take on any loans.
&gt; If you aren't ivy league you have no hope of getting on wall st in front office.  BB associate here coming in to confirm this.  Front office wall st is comprised of 2 types of people.    1* Tier 1 (Ivy, 4.0 UChicago, London School of Econ, 4.0 NYU, etc)  undergrads who didn't make it into HF's and are looking for exp so they can move into HF realm.  These are usually interns from junior/sr summer that are now on 2 year analyst rotation programs (usually 4 rotations of 6 months).  2* MBA/MS and CFA Charterholders with past experience in capital markets.  This means they have already been working at a BB whether it was in relationship management or middle office. Take some of the commentary on home buying forums with a grain of salt. I too have read some of the commentary on these forums such as myFICO, Trulia, or Zillow and rarely is the right advice given or proper followup done. Typical 401k withdrawals for home purchase would not be considered a hardship. However, most employer 401k plans will allow you to take a loan for 401k as long as you provide suitable documentation: HUD-1 statement, Real Estate Contract, Good Faith Estimate, or some other form of suitable documentation as described by the plan administrator.  For instance, I just took a 401k loan to pay for closing costs and I had to provide only the real estate contract. Could I not follow through with the contract? Sure, but what if I am found out for fraud? Then the plan administrator would probably end up turning the distribution into a taxable distribution. I wouldn't go to jail in this hypothetical situation - I am only stealing from myself. But the law states that certain loan situations are not liable for tax as long as that situation still exists. In the home loan situation, my employer allows for a low interest, 10 year loan. My employer also allows for a pre-approved loan for any purpose. This would be a low interest, 5 year loan.  There is also the option to not do a loan at all. But normally that is only allowed after you have exhausted all your loan options and the government makes it intentionally harsh (30% penalty at least) to discourage people from dumping their tax free haven 401k accounts. That all being said, many plans offer no prepayment penalty. So like my employer has for us, I can pay it all back in full whenever I want or make micropayments every month. Otherwise, it comes out of my pay stub biweekly. So if it were to fall through, I could just put it all back like it never happened. Though with my plan, there is a cooling off period of 7 days before I can take another loan. Keep in mind that if you leave your employer then the full amount becomes a taxable distribution unless you pay it back within a certain period of time after leaving the employer.  Whether this fits your financial situation is up to you, but a loan is definitely preferred over a partial or full withdrawal since you are paying yourself back for your rightly earned retirement which is just as important. You mention only two debts, mortgage and student loan, but you mention $19K in savings, which suggests that you are a saver, and likely do not have other debts. You did not mention your (net) income and expenses (income statement), but since you have substantial savings, you likely live within your means (income > expenses).  Since you mention $38K in retirement, we might conclude you are regularly saving for retirement (are you saving 10% toward retirement)? You did not mention any medical condition or other debts, that might require a large savings, so I would suggest having 6 months savings ($2.5K x 6 = $15K) but should your net expenses be less, you might reduce this ($2K x 6 = $12K). You do not mention any investment you might want to make, but since you did not mention any candidate investments, we can assume you have no (specific) investments you find particularly attractive.  You did not mention anything you were saving to purchase that you might want to purchase. You have combined $19K + $50K = $69K savings, and $15K would be a comfortable emergency savings, leaving $54K you could use to reduce mortgage or student loan debt. The mortgage debt interest @4.5%, is higher, so paying that debt off would be like earning 4.5% guaranteed return on your money, tax-free.  At your income, your marginal tax rate is low enough that the mortgage interest deduction (if you do itemize) would not reduce this return much (15% if you itemize). The student loan debt interest @2.8%, would be like earning 2.8% guaranteed return on your money, tax-free. Clearly the higher return on your 'investment' in paying off debt would be reducing your mortgage balance (over 50% higher return on investment, compared to the student loan debt). You did not mention any circumstance that might cause the student loan rate to increase, the mortgage rate to increase, nor did you mention any difficulty making both the mortgage and student loan payments, the amounts of either payment, nor the number of years remaining to pay on either. Should you need (or desire) to reduce your payments, you could choose to payoff the student loan to eliminate one payment, and thus decrease your expenses.  Or you could choose to pay down the mortgage, and refinance (or refactor) the mortgage to obtain a smaller payment.  Another strategy (assuming you have had your house for 5-7 years), might be to pay the mortgage down enough to refinance into a 15 year loan, and (assuming you have a good credit score) obtain a lower (3%) rate. But I am going to suggest you consider a blended approach.  Combine the Dave Ramsey Debt Snowball approach with the reduce the interest rate approach.  Take the $54K ($57K?) available (after reserving 6 months emergency fund), and split between both.  You pay your mortgage down by $27K and your student loan debt down by $27K.  Your blended return on investment is (2.8+4.5)/2 = 3.65%, and you have the following Balance Sheet: Assets: Debts: The next steps would be to, There are two great reasons for paying off the student loan debt. One is the Dave Ramsey Debt Snowball approach which is that this is the smaller debt, and thus represents a psychological win, and the other is that student loan debt has special treatment even in bankruptcy. "First off, leaving money in a 529 account is not that bad, since you may always change the beneficiary to most any blood relative.  So if you have leftovers, you don't HAVE to pay the 10% penalty if you have a grandchild, for instance, that can use it.  But if you would rather have the money out, then you need a strategy to get it out that is tax efficient. My prescription for managing a situation like this is not to pay directly out of the 529 account, but instead calculate your cost of education up-front and withdraw that money at the beginning of the school year.  You can keep it in a separate account, but that's not necessary.  The amount you withdraw should be equal to what the education costs, which may be estimated by taking the budget that the school publishes minus grants and scholarships.  You should have all of those numbers before the first day of school.  This is amount $X. During the year, write all the checks out of your regular account.  At the end of the school year, you should expect to have no money left in the account.  I presume that the budget is exactly what you will spend.  If not, you might need to make a few adjustments, but this answer will presume you spend exactly $X during the fall and the spring of the next year. In order to get more out of the 529 without paying penalties, you are allowed to remove money without penalty, but having the gains taxed ($y + $z).  You have the choice of having the 529 funds directed to the educational institution, the student, or yourself.  If you direct the funds to the student, the gains portion would be taxed at the student's rate.  Everyone's tax situation is different, and of course there is a linkage between the parent's taxes and student's taxes, but it may be efficient to have the 529 funds directed to the student.  For instance, if the student doesn't have much income, they might not even be required to file income tax.  If that's the case, they may be able to remove an amount, $y, from the 529 account and still not need to file.  For instance, let's say the student has no unearned income, and the gains in the 529 account were 50%.  The student could get a check for $2,000, $1,000 would be gains, but that low amount may mean the student was not required to file. Or if it's more important to get more money out of the account, the student could remove the total amount of the grants plus scholarships ($y + $z).  No penalty would be due, just the taxes on the gains.  And at the student's tax rate (generally, but check your own situation). Finally, if you really want the money out of the account, you could remove a check ($y + $z + $p).  You'd pay tax on the gains of the sum, but penalty of 10% only on the $p portion. This answer does not include the math that goes along with securing some tax credits, so if those credits still are around as you're working through this, consider this article (which requires site sign-up).  In part, this article says: How much to withdraw -    ... For most parents, it will be 100% of the beneficiary’s qualified higher education expenses paid this year—tuition, fees, books, supplies, equipment, and room and board—less $4,000. The $4,000 is redirected to the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC),... When to withdraw it -    Take withdrawals in the same calendar year that the qualified expenses were paid. .... Designating the distributee -    Since it is usually best that the Form 1099-Q be issued to the beneficiary, and show the beneficiary’s social security number, I prefer to use either option (2) or (3) [ (2) a check made out to the account beneficiary, or (3) a check made out to the educational institution] What about scholarships? -    The 10 percent penalty on a non-qualified distribution from a 529 plan is waived when the excess distribution can be attributed to tax-free scholarships. While there is no direct guidance from the IRS, many tax experts believe the distribution and the scholarship do not have to match up in the same calendar year when applying the penalty waiver. If you're curious about timing (taking non-penalty grants and scholarship money out), there is this link, which says you ""probably"" are allowed to accumulate grants and scholarship totals, for tax purposes, over multiple years." Major in CS.  I'm 26 with a BS in Finance (with Accounting minor). I wish I went with a CS back in the day, but oh well. I'm learning programming and computer science on my own now while I work full-time. Fortunately, I'm well on my way towards a strong IT career since I work in business intelligence and big data. It can be a grind while working full-time though.  Don't think you are not good at science classes. I used to think the same. They're not easy, which means you will just have to read and study more and better. Keep at it, develop leadership skills and organize study groups, meet with your professors and TAs if you must. Don't be afraid to ask questions, ever.  Also consider getting a minor in something. It'll be harder but usually well worth it. Pick a minor in a field you find interesting. Every field and industry needs CS majors and you will make yourself that much more valuable. A major in CS with a minor in finance would make you look badass. But don't go with finance though, I suggest a science (any bio, physics or chemistry is good). You'll end up with a nice paying job. I consider my CS skills beginner, but I'm above average compared to the general population and already get paid very well. You definitely can under those conditions. Just be very careful to specify that you are making extra principal payments. To my knowledge, there shouldn't be a limit on the amount you can receive as a gift, and gifts are not considered income to you; they are not taxable for the recipient.  Depending on the size of the wire transfer, it may be reported by the bank to the government, but there is no limit, and it should not be a concern to you.  (I don't think that $2500 is large enough to be reportable anyway.) Having said that, this might be a good question to ask your international student advisor at your school to make sure he or she agrees. There is a very similar question on Avvo.com (a legal question-and-answer site) that agrees: Limit to transfer money to students on f1 visa. "There will be many who will judge your proposal on the idea that subsidized loans should be available to those who need them, and should not be used by others who are simply trying to profit from them. Each school has a pool of money available to offer for subsidized and unsubsidized loans. If they are giving you a subsidized loan, they cannot allocate it to someone else who needs it. Once you weigh the investment risks, I agree that it is analogous to investing rather than repaying your mortgage quickly. If you understand the risks, there's no reason why you shouldn't consider other options about what to do with the money. I am more risk averse, so I happen to prefer paying down the mortgage quickly after all other investment/savings goals have been met. Where you fit on that continuum will answer the question of whether or not it is a ""bad idea""."