Is transferring to the University of Virginia worth $100,000?

I completed two years at a community college nearby with the intent to transfer to a target or semi-target as a rising third-year. The only school I was accepted into was UVa as an Economics major but they only transferring roughly 40 of my credits which means I would need to do an extra semester which would give me a better shot at SA recruiting with how pushed back it is.

However, I got my financial aid package back and got roughly $7k in grants for the year, and $15,000 in loans from the governement which means I would need around another $30,000 in private loans for the 19-20 year -- in total I would run up upwards of $100,000 in debt. My other option is to just attend a small liberal arts college in my city that's ranked around 200 but has suprsingly sends 5-10 students a year into finance positions due to an established finance club they have.

I'm just getting cold feet because I didn't realize I would need to take out this much in loans for UVA so I need some help weighing the risk vs reward in terms of how well it can help getting my a job in IB. If it helps, I've also done two internships at boutique private equity firms so since my freshman year of community I had an idea of how networking would help and all that. Most of the time when I applied to bigger name internships my resume was trashed instantly because I didn't have a real school name but the smaller banks gave me interviews.

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I don't normally advise people going into debt for college. However, UVA is one of the few public universities worth going into that amount of debt for in my opinion (alongside Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Georgia Tech)

Your on-campus and off-campus recruiting prospects are nearly unlimited. All of the consulting firms (MBB on down), all of the banks, all of the Fortune 500. Just really kick ass on your grades and make college and recruiting a full time job so that you make it worth the money.

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.

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