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I owe almost $160,000 in student loans.
That's as much as a mortgage!
It didn't seem that bad when I thought I would work for a big law firm, but now that I'm back in academia, it is suffocating. I'm trying to get into the new Income Based Repayment program, but it takes time. And since my fiance has been out of work for 6 months, things are REALLY tight!
Sigh. Anyone else feeling suffocated by student loans?
Wowza, I can't even imagine that much. Right now I have about $20, will have $25k when I finish in the spring. I'm not even thinking about my masters unless I can find a job where they'll pay for it. I was able to find a great school that was much much cheaper than any other (mostly cuz it was a 2 year commuter school when I started, since has changed to a 4 year and building dorms). My payment will be about $300 a month starting in Dec of next year, nothing we can't handle. Hopefully you can get into the repayment program soon!
Yes. Yes! It is astounding, isn't it? I make okay money, but most of what comes in goes right. Back. Out. I, too am trying to do this icome based thing, but as you said it takes time. Meanwhile, I am having to make some decisions about which bills to pay. Do I eat? Or do I keep the temp in my apartment under a hundred degrees? *Sigh*
It sucks.
Thanks for posting. You know, I was thinking about this the other day. I wondered just how many brides-(and grooms)-to-be are effected by student loans. I have a six figure debt hanging over my head and that's just undergraduate. It was hard to come to terms with it but I've been working really hard to pay it down. Just stinks to never have much money left over. To say it makes weddding planning difficult is an understatement. It's hard to justify spending $15k on a wedding when I know how much that could help w my loans (not that I have that on hand, but you know). Working on IBR right now for one of my loans, but the other two are private--bane of my existence. Luckily the mister is supportive (emotionally) which helps, because sometimes you just need to cry about it.
Agreed on all counts.
I'm about $60,000 in debt from undergrad even after scholarships, financial aid, etc. I'm in deferrment right now because I'm getting my master's. I feel a small sense of achievement that I'm paying for my master's out of pocket (going to a CUNY school) but I dread the $600+ a month payments that will resume in 2011.
I've looked at all kinds of consolidation, refinancing, etc. options and nothing will help. Unfortunately, I was my parents' first kid to go to college and we had no idea what we were doing. I signed into one of those unfair, unclear, high interest loans that you see the articles about on CNN. Unfortunately I really have no options at this point except to keep paying my masters' tuition and be prepared to resume payments in 2011.
[Fingers crossed to win the lottery before grad school is over!]
I'm not even finished with school yet, and I already have about $20k racked up. I'll have anywhere from $35k-$40k when I'm finished. Just thinking about having to make those payments in a year or two is really scary! Especially when we want to do things like buy a house and (hopefully) start having kids in the next 5 years or so.
Yes. My student loans are constantly on my mind. I hate the amount of interest that I'm paying and I'm currently looking into ways to reduce that. I pay as much as I can, but I keep thinking how much simpler things would be if I had an extra $500 each month.
@Lovesthebear: Trust me, I had the tears this morning. And I agree - it makes wedding planing (or any other spending!) so difficult.
Honey, I am STILL paying on my student loans and I finished grad school 13 years ago! The student loan people are vicous, theyn are worse than debt collectors and at one point, when I was working part time and could not make full payments, they refused to take reduced payments and attached my wages instead. And unlike other forms of debt - even bankruptcy can't get you out of them. You have my sympathy!
Yes. Yes.
Mr. Star and I BOTH have student loans, unfortunately, and it's hit-or-miss whether I'll ever be making the big bucks. Someday he will be, but it takes a long time to work your way up. I don't owe a ton, but he has a seriously huge debt load. It's pretty damn frusterating.
I'm about to start a master's program, and when it's done, I'll have about $35k in loans. I'm not in a particularly lucrative field, so the loans are really going to be weighing on me for a while. Money is going to be TIGHT in our household for the next year while I'm at school and my FH is the only one pulling an income. Makes wedding planning just a little more stressful!!!
FI has been paying his loans for a few years already but he says it's going to continue until he dies. I haven't started the dreaded repayment process yet but I graduate in December and I will have probably around $30-35k, to repay which makes me cry a little. It's really hard to know that we'll be paying for our wedding when we both have so much student loan debt over our heads, it really makes me want to run to Vegas at times. I consider myself lucky to have a lot of options after graduation with a history and education degree so I'm going to try to get a job other than teaching at least for a little while. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching but I want to make sure that I don't love another career. The whole graduation coming up is making the student loan thing a reality and very stressful!!!
I just started paying back in June. It is overwhelming to look at but we are really focusing on paying down debt right now to prepare for buying a house in a few years. It is not easy. I don't have quite that much, I believe you can put them off for a time if you can prove financial hardship. I like to write down & track what I owe, how much I paid, and then the remaining balance each month so there is a visual of it actually decreasing vs. every month seeing a huge number!
Oh yeah! It's so overwhelming! I'm way up there with you August15. Undergrad, law school, study abroad (twice!). It was all worth it, but I'm going to be paying it back forever. Yep, my monthly payments are as much as a mortgage too! My husband has absolutely zero debt (not even a cent of credit card debt), so he's baffled at my situation. Sometimes I feel guilty about it, but I really consider it an investment in myself. There was no way I could have gotten where I am without the loans and I'm finally happy with my career. I'm just going to slowly chip away at the amount for the next 50 years!
Yes! I'm glad to know I'm not alone in this boat--though I wish none of us had loans. I have a little under 30K to pay off... it seems like such a long way away. I think if I'd known what I was getting into, I might have reconsidered my rather indulgent MA degree.
Yes Yes Yes. I only have about $20k but the fiance has around $70k... and thats just for undergrad. And like hotchildinthecity, fiance got sucked in by a bunch of private loans and will be paying those off for the rest of his life. If he can get a job once he graduates. ugh. As for me I plan to get my doctorate so tack on another ~$150k. I'm not really sure what we'll do when we both have to start repaying them. Maybe we'll just go to school until we die?
I was able to live at home and work my tail off for 2 years after I graduted and paid off $35,000 in those two years, and I should make my last payment next month!
However, FI's finishing his PHd at the moment, and he um, got screwed with his undergraduate loans. So, while he is getting his PHd, he was unable to defer his undergraduate payments. So, he is going to school full-time and working, but he doesn't get to keep any of his money because it is barely enough to cover the undergraduate loan payment. I can't wait till he graduates May 2010 and then we'll have 6 figures of debt. oh poop, this is going to suck, isn't it.
My husband doesn't owe any for school b/c he was able to get it paid for completely. My parents and I worked hard to pay for as much of mine as possible. I kept my grades up for scholarships and worked as much as I could (usually part time during semesters and full time on breaks and between semesters) to avoid loans; during grad school, I was able to get an assistantship position for half of it, so I got half my tuition and a living stipend during that time. We weren't able to pay it all at the time, so I did accumulate some. It sounds like a lot, but soon we will have two incomes and we are pretty good with our finances, so I hope to be able to pay it off pretty quickly. We'd like to be able to buy a house soon!
holllly smokes. You must've gone to Stanford you smarty girl! Tuition at my school was only 8K a year. Living expenses in my sorority house was only 1600 a semester. So needles to say, I didn't do too shabby. I got off easy and DH served in the military 4 years to get his slate wiped clean. That sucked major.
There is a new program out there--you only pay 10% of your loans. AFter 25 years, your slate is wiped clean. That might be an option for you. Is that the program you're talking about? Can you put your skills to use somewhere with a loan payback program? I know the military offers this (probably not what you want to hear, but 160K is a lotta dough) and some hospitals do, too.
Just pay back 20K a year. I know that sounds like a lot, but once your FI is working, pay it back slowly. Easier said than done, I know. I have a friend and her husband who live like college kids still. They use his salary to live off of and they use hers to pay back loans. They're chipping away with like, 30K a year. If you could set aside 20K a year, you'd get it paid off in 8, maybe 9 years. That's not so bad.
Ohmi this is on my mind 24/7. I am currently at $150,000 with interest and its getting higher every day. I am looking for a job as a TEACHER so I will never make enough to get out of this debt. I made the mistake of taking out private student loans with HUGE interest rates. I had no idea what I was doing and my mom was sick so I signed whatever I needed to continue staying in school.
Luckily my father feels awful that he left it up to me, and they are planning on paying 1/2 of my monthly payment so we can still have a life.
My husband has no undergrad loans, but is going to go all the way on to his PhD... I'm stopping where I am for now (finished undergrad) with about $25k. I was feeling all right about that until I got pregnant and realized it's not worth it for me to work and put the baby in daycare with most of my income. Now I feel like an idiot... I promised myself and my mom (who never finished her degree) that I would finish, and I'm the first woman in my direct family line to finish college (I had a girl cousin finish a couple years ago, but both our moms didn't finish and our grandma barely made it out of high school). I'm really proud of that, but now I feel like having to stay at home I "wasted" all that time and money -- I'm proud to know I did it, and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, but in the cold light of the real world, paying thousands for a degree usually means you work your butt off for 5-10 years afterward to get clear of it, which I can't do right now.
Just wondering, I'm going to have to take some sort of option on my loans, and I see a lot of you did too -- how'd you make your decision? I'm considering the graduated repayment, but the income-sensitive looks good too. Which would you pick?
Actually, Congress recently passed a program where your federal loans will be forgiven after ten years of public service (provided you make your payments during those ten years). Since I work at a school, I qualify. I'm trying to get into this program (it's brand new) because it would quite literally change my life!
August15 -- what's the name of the program? I've been trying to get a job with my state History Department for months and if I did that could be amazing...
Here is the information on public service loan forgiveness:
http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/PSF.jsp
Yep, that's it! I'm just really hoping that the money will be there in ten years to pay it off. :)
Ill have 100K plus by the time I end law school in May however we are planning on making the first three years of my salary go directly to paying them off & keeping things running with FH's salary, since he's done with his student loans and has been practicing law for 15 years now ( We are just living on his salary right now since I am only a law clerk and still in school) FH for some reason thought I only had 60K and freaked out when i told him that other day - I told him - that's what I had half way through law school when you asked for 2 years ago ( Im in the four year program) He had no idea how much I was paying for school - I totally understand it's my responsibility so we are making sure we got them out of the way ASAP once I start working.
Eventually it will be worth it - luckily i have paid off all my credit cards while in school :)
august15bride, we're in the same boat. My husband will finish school with close to $200,000 in student loan debt from undergrad and graduate. Considering the average starting salary for psychologists is $60,000, I want to cry too :( I also have about 25K in loans from undergrad and grad, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to my husband's debt. At this rate, we'll never be able to buy a home.
My FI thinks it's crazy how much student debt I have--because he has none. He went to NYU basically for free and he pays for his grad school out of pocket (CUNY). I have both federal and private loans, I'm currently paying my private loan and the federal is automatically deferred while I'm in grad school. I graduate in December and I've got about $65,000 to pay back. Sigh. I'm resigned to the fact that I'll be paying the government for a long, long time. I'm trying to convince FI to help me pay :)
I also have a fair amount of student loan debt, as does my husband. I'm currently in deferrment, because I'm a full-time student, but I'm also adding to the loans by doing my post-bachelor's program. However, I'm hoping to be a public school teacher, so maybe I can take advantage of this program as well.
YES and YES and YES. FI just finished his doctoral degree and owes $80K, but makes so little right now that the loans are being deferred. And I'm a year out from being done with law school, won't be working at a big firm, and will probably borrow $120K total to finish the degree (stupid fee hikes... this was only supposed to cost $100K! 
ONLY!).
So even though neither of us are making payments yet, it really bothers me to owe a small house to Sallie Mae. And I'm sure I'll feel much worse when we're paying $2K per month on our loans... which might let us pay them off by the time our children graduate college.
I feel the pressure a little bit, although I don't have nearly that much, I have more than a car loan. It's annoying to budget a monthly payment for student loans...but my goal is to ahev it paid in 4 years. My husband is starting his 2nd of 4 years of grad school and so far he has gotten scholarships and support and not paid for anything out of pocket. I really hope by the time he's out we're student loan free...but it seems like an eternity away. I can only imagine what you feel like!
Just think of the investment you made in your education and future though! the loans don't last forever.
How are you all dealing with the weight of the student loans while planning a wedding? We are getting ZERO help from our parents and are still trying to plan a very small, modest wedding for $10k. However, on a bad day that still seems like an obscene amount of money to me and I can't help but think "thats $10k less student loan money that is gaining interested..." or even "thats $10k I could use from grad school so I wouldn't have to take out any MORE loans." Sigh.
so far not yet. thankfully my undergrad payments have always been on the low side [i choose to pay more] so they have been manageable. though now that i'm in grad school, i'll be adding another $50k on top of the present amount so who knows what the final monthly payments will be. since my undergrad loans are in deferment while i'm in school, i've been taking advantage of the super low interest and kept paying on them so hopefully my end debt won't be too much higher.
add that to the fact my bf is considering going back to pursue an m.a. or ph.d...yikes!
Me, me, me! I owe $160k for law school. It was the worst thing I've ever done to myself. Job market has been soo bad here, nothing for entry level lawyers without experience. I would be in a better place now if I don't have the loans to worry about.
Wow, I feel so bad for some of you! Six digits in student loan debt? Yikes! It's been hard not to take out any student loans for undergrad and now grad school; but reading your stories, I'm glad my husband and I decided to work so much and pay everything out of pocket instead of taking out loans. I can't even imagine that much debt! No wonder you feel suffocated!
I feel as though I'm drowning in student loans. I have a decent job, but making the payment each month is still a struggle. Luckily, my fiance had his loans paid off by the Army.
ughhhhh student loans are the bane of my existence!!! I sometimes wish I had never gone to a private college, although I loved it....And people say you can't put a price on happiness :D But seriously, the debt is overwhelming. To know that I have $85k (or maybe even more) in student loans is a burden I carry.
FH and I both have student debt, I more than he. When I dwell on it, I get upset, but its something that I know we'll work our way out of eventually...and the day that I have an extra $600 a month will be a glorious one!
I am always so relieved to see that I'm not the only one soaring above 6 figures... (me and my classmates anyway...).
I thought I did pretty well from undergrad. Between scholarships and grants, I only have about $27K in loans (but the tuition was $30,000+ a year!).
Grad school, however, is a 4-year doctorate at ~$30K/year, with no possibility or loans or grants/assistantships (there aren't any).
DH and I are buying a house but are only buying what we can afford on just his salary. When I'm fully employed (in 1.5 years), the vast majority of my salary will go to paying off my loans and we won't have a change from how we live now.
WOW!!! and I seriously though $80K sucked...my parents took out $40k on me - they have $30k left to pay & I took $40K out.
So technically I myself am "ONLY" paying back $40K and my parents $30K
Luckily, though I got locked to a FABULOUS interest rate a while back and my bills per month are ONLY $215 for the federal loan and $65 (which will go up in a few years) for my private loan.
yeah - they SUCK - but I also LOVE using the interest at tax time!
Just remember though - unlike credit card debt - student loans are considered a "good debt" just like your mortgage & car.
Thanks everyone for sharing their stories.
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