That amount of debt it normal around here (Miami, Fl). Yes there are cheaper schools but the amount of students they take and the number of applicants, it's just extremely competitive, everyone wants to go to nursing school. I started out wanted to go to medical school so I was working on my BS in biology before I realized I wanted to be a nurse but instead of quitting I just decided to finish it off, I mean might as well I was close to being done and already had all these loans to show for it and just figured maybe all those upper div sciences and 2 years of Chem would help me down the line at some point. So yea I finished my BS in Biology and just got accepted to an accelerated BSN program starting January at University of Miami which happens to cost 41k with fees and stuff not including books and uniforms etc. My first bachelors in bio has me with close to 50k in debt already. I didn't have a rich mommy and daddy to pay for my stuff, and in this city you need a car so between rent and car/insurance payment (not a fancy car either) and living expenses I was pretty much living off financial aid and when I decided to work more and borrow less, well I realized I couldn't do as many classes, a bio major is no joke! So it ended up taking me longer than just 4 years to complete. So now all I know is when I finish my BSN next year I will be drowning in student debt!! í ½í¸í ½í¸