[TimPC]

The debt load is worth the risk for someone who's wanted to be an engineer all their life and has seen signs in their schooling they are likely to be good at it. I think the debt load is very questionable, for someone who is at the margin between being an engineer and not being an engineer, has no indicators they would be good at it. Plenty of engineers (especially outside big cities) end up peaking at $80k/year which isn't worth taking a huge amount of debt for especially if their alternative is earning $60k/year already.