I think Hopkins has a bit of a toxic culture. They take their "#1 in public health for 20+ years" thing seriously and it makes for a very competitive group of kiddos. Which is also fair being that it's difficult to get in in the first place. I think Emory is a bit more friendly. Baltimore is a dangerous city. Atlanta isn't a ton better but it is better. Atlanta is very much so a global and public health capital. Emory's program is global and Hopkins' isn't. Georgetown is the only one that guarantees international experience but it should be possible elsewhere. DC is stupid expensive and very frat boy, mommy and daddy money kinda people who I hate. Baltimore and Atlanta are fairly cheap, Baltimore more so than Atlanta but Atlanta isn't expensive. I do think Emory is probably the best choice for me. I just need to actually play with finances some. I appealed the financial aid decisions and will hopefully hear by April 15th. And if I work in fed or non-profit, they theoretically forgive student loans, but only after 120 qualifying monthly payments which is a decade and I'd love to not owe money for that long.
That magical 120-payment thing was never really defined. Last I checked, something like 40,000 people had applied for disbursement under the terms and something like 6 had succeeded. But then, that was like 2018. The fact that every student loan out there has been in forbearance for a year leads me to believe that our entire structure of financial aid is about to change. I'm not sure how, I'm not sure to whose benefit, but what we have now will not survive. Especially as every single graph the Fed chooses to generate is going to take a massive hit to the nuts the minute they end forbearance. Look - my wife has like $250k in student loan debt. I did the math on it and discovered that making the payments they want will have us paying $1.5m by the time we're done. That's the point where you recognize that the social contract is broken, that students are getting a raw deal, and FUCK YOU Granite State, we're going to bend over backwards to demonstrate how shitty our financial status is and pay the income-adjusted minimum until we hit 360 payments. My wife will probably die with seven figures of student loan debt. What's the fucking point of paying more than the absolute bare minimum on an arrangement like that?