Few suggestions to you all students:

Pick a college that will give you instate tuition ( many state colleges in MN) or find ones who will give you scholarship. State Colleges in MN are still around $3000 per semester for tuition. Large state colleges also offer oppurtunites to work Part time in the college without the hassel of INS or authorities. You can earn about $500.00 per month working as a library helper, lab helper, security guard, Cafeteria boy or a resident supervisor. That should be enough for you to live a simple student life in a two bedroom apt with 4 roomates. Lets say that you did not work during the summer, you should be able to graduate with 15K for tuition. This amount here is pretty good compared to what colleges are charging back home. In another words, if you were back in Nepal, you parents would be spending this much to colleges anyways. But if you are lucky enough to work in the summer you should be able to save up 6K during the summer itself. Hence, you will breakeven with your studies throughout your undergrad.

The key thing that lacks YOU students is that, you do not know what your goal is. You have to know the purpose of your study. What do you want to get out of it. Do you want to go to college becasue you are passionate about some acemedia and you want to master it? Do yo u want to go to college because you are under pressure to get a college degree?? Do yo u it becasue everyone around you is wanting it? Or are you just attending college becasue you do not know anything else beside going to college?

Although, getting a student loand sounds good and all for some of your cases here, it may not sound as great for the ones who just want to get a degree of some sort and then get some sort of job based on that degree. If you are in the category of just getting a degree for the sake of getting it why get a loan and increase the risk on yourself and your parents. If your parents are taking a huge financial risk by investing 8K on you initial departure and that is all you can do....then not working while going to school is probably not an option for you. But if your parents are well off and can loan spend 40K on you and you have the ability and confidence in rebuilding on those reinvested 40K why not take the loan and get it done.

It would be little naive to compare the Indian Govt policies with ours. How many of think that it is quite easy for an Indian to get an education loan? Is our government as strong as the Indian government financially. Its probably not.

The major problem i see with most of the College Kids today is that they want to live an American life as soon as they land in this country. I cannot add up how it is possible to afford an iPhone, Car, booze, Ganja,  Girlfriend and working hard establishing the fact of living an Amercan life to folks back home without working 60 -70 hrs at a gas station. Now look back at your Indian and Chinese friend. Did they own a car? Did they have an iPhone and a girlfriend? Did they party as hard as you did? Ask yourself these questions.

So my suggestion to you all students is before you decide on the loan/no loan, work/no work, Good college/Mediocre College consider the combination of (Your Acedemic Status + your Family's Financial Status + The Lifestyle you want to live during your student life). Pick the scenerio that is most applicable to you. Once you determin your scenerio do not sway away from it until the goal is achieved.