Originally Posted by tom14cat14 (Post 1267741)

I gave up reading the thread after page one with everyone telling you to use the search function so i will post my thoughts on UND.

First i will say go military if you want/can. I was in Airforce ROTC my freshmen year and then dropped because there was 50+ in my class and they told us maybe 3 will become pilots. So i decided to get out because i wanted more control over my future. (Biggest mistake ever) I suggest not going to UND unless you have rich parents to pay for everything. It was a great school and i had a lot of fun. But the debt I racked up going there is not worth becoming an airline pilot. I was accepted to Purdue for their engineering school and then I found out about UND and said why would i go to school for something I didn't plan on doing because I was going to be a pilot. So I went to UND. I graduated in 3.5 years and was in Ground school for Mesaba 14 days after graduation. I thought this was great. Then came time to pay the student loans back. By the time I had to start paying my loans totalled over 150k or monthly payments of about 1300 a month. Starting pay at Mesaba was 1200 a month after all deductions and health insurance etc... You can do the math I could not even make my student loan payments so i had to but them in to forberence and allow over 700 a month of interest to build. Now I am a 5 year FO sitting reserve and might make 40k for the first time in my career. If my wife did not have a good job I would be living in a cardboard box. The reason I am telling you actual numbers is because I hope you and others that are like you think about going to high priced schools like UND. When i was 18 i did not think about how i was going to pay loans back. I just knew i wanted to be a pilot and that was that. I did not know any pilots so i did not know what life actually was like. Good luck in what ever you choose.

Originally Posted by Commando (Post 1271408)

Do they still offer Aviation Administration. This is what I did back in the day. It was well worth it.

I now fly Left Seat MD-11 for Big Brown. UND back then was Fun, not sure about today. I cut the $ off after the Sioux implosion.

Originally Posted by propilot (Post 1269330)

Just curious about your total loan amount. How did you get that far into debt? The program doesn't cost that much in today's costs yet alone 5 years ago, even living on campus.

Originally Posted by tom14cat14 (Post 1271997)

I was out of state tuition the first year. I went up to my MEI and you have interest accruing while you are in school and the first few years while you defer/forbearance because you loan payments are basically what you make your first year at a regional. Then there is also cost of loan consolidation. There are a lot of things that add up that you don't think about. You might only take out 100k in loans but when you graduate it is 125k because of the crazy interest. I also did not have a job for my freshmen and sophomore year because i crammed the classes in order to graduate early. (I was also in ROTC freshmen year) If i remember correctly I had at least 75k in flight costs. This was pretty much Min time on everything.