[Ferrotin]

This really depends on what Z is.

I wound up going to a different private engineering school, with some discounts applied, and I regret making my parents pay much of that tuition instead of going to our state’s good state university.

You’ll be fine if your pick MIT. $180k at 5% interest is $9k a year. It’s less than a mortgage. It’ll be a fraction of rent in most places you’d consider working at later. You’ll want to pay it off as slowly as possible as long as the inflation rate is higher.