QUESTION: I need(ed) a student loan to continue my education and will/have:
(thanks in advance for your insight!)

Most of my friends had student loans because their families couldn't pay full tuition, plus board, fees, books, etc, and whatever scholarships they had didn't quite cut it, and whatever they'd make working in their spare time wasn't going to do it, either. Many of them took classes all summer (or at least half of it), and so working overtime in the summer wasn't really an option, either. And you do need more stuff now than 30 years ago - a computer is pretty much a necessity (Yea, there are some available for student use, but time on them is generally at a premium, and some schools now are starting to require that students have their own). Not to mention that stuff is just a lot more expensive now.

I was EXTREMEMLY lucky in that my grandfather had set aside some cash to collect dust & interest, and by the time I was in college it had collected enough interest to pay tuition, books, fees, and board - through all 4 years - plus buy me a computer. Everyone else I knew had to rely on some combination of loans, work study programs, scholarships, and ROTC.

And that was just undergrad, at one of the cheaper private schools in the country (rated a "best educational buy" by US News, FWIW).

Kaiti