20k in Student Debt/30k in Bank

[96Firebird]

Damn, tell me you at least worked part-time during school.

I graduated with $44k in student loan debt, and I did work part-time during college, as well as a year of co-op that paid decent. Some colleges aren't cheap. Add to that the cost of just living, and that part-time job pays for nearly $0 of the tuition costs. Luckily, I had some scholarships that helped out with my tuition.

Most of my loans are around 6.5%, with the lowest being around 3%, and the highest being 10%. The 10% loan is getting paid off the quickest.

 

[Meractik]

People that procure loans but have no idea of the interest sicken me... how do you borrow money without acknowledging and knowing what the requirements are when you pay it back. Nothing is given to you for free... did you not even read the contractual agreement presented to you prior to receiving the funding?

This is all to similar to the news stories you read about how students are swimming in debt after graduation and can't find a job... they'll get no sympathy from me, you acknowledged the long term effects of the loan when you initially started your education, you where just more concerned with the fact that you could start school without having to pay until you graduated. Well you got what you wanted and hopefully graduated now its time to pay up. its called R-E-S-P-O-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y.

 

[yottabit]

Damn, tell me you at least worked part-time during school.

Yes I did... unfortunately I didn't start making decent money at internships until my upperclassmen years

I would have graduated with only about $16k in debt, had not so much of my scholarship expired from lack of funding on the state and federal level. My school is fairly expensive but the scholarships had made it seem reasonable until they all turned to vapor. At least I was lucky enough to make it this far through before that happened!

It's frustrating that I had to essentially double my debt just for my senior year but it will pay off obviously. My Freshman and Sophomore year I only had to contribute about $6k/yr to my tuition, my Junior year I had a full scholarship, my senior year I had to pay $16k. My schools tuition is $28k/yr.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Let me give my address. Ill invest it for you. :sneaky:

 

[zinfamous]

I'm just gonna through something out there for shits:

pay off half

:hmm:


(actually, the interest can be deducted from your tax returns each year so...not a huge incentive to pay it all off. Granted, I have no idea how much is actually refunded)

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't get how people accumulate that much in student loans. You have to ask yourself what the point of college is. The answer is: to get a job. Why do you want a job? To make money to live. If you go to college to get a job so you can pay for college, you're doing it wrong.

That said, any debt should be paid off if it can be paid off. Nothing worse than the burden of knowing there is a lingering debt, especially that much.

 

[mikegg]

I don't get how people accumulate that much in student loans. You have to ask yourself what the point of college is. The answer is: to get a job. Why do you want a job? To make money to live. If you go to college to get a job so you can pay for college, you're doing it wrong.

That said, any debt should be paid off if it can be paid off. Nothing worse than the burden of knowing there is a lingering debt, especially that much.

Parents didn't have money for my college so I had to borrow. I grew up extremely poor. Think having to live in a single room with my parents, brother, and sister for most of my life poor. I've never even went on a vacation before. Being so poor in my early years have really taught me to save. Somehow I have 30k in my bank, 10k more than my debt 4 months after college.

I am lucky though. I worked at various internships throughout my college career and instead of partying, I built websites in my spare time. Got offered a job 3 months before I graduated and started working full-time before my classes were even over.

I'm now 4 months removed from graduation and I'm already getting interview requests for manager level jobs with 100k salaries. Right now I make 65k/year. I plan on staying here for 1 year then move on to a 100k job.

I realize that I'm in a much much better position than most college graduates though. 20k isn't much at all in my opinion. It's just like having a car payment.

If I had 100k debt without a job, I'd be sweating bricks.

 

[yottabit]

I don't get how people accumulate that much in student loans. You have to ask yourself what the point of college is. The answer is: to get a job. Why do you want a job? To make money to live. If you go to college to get a job so you can pay for college, you're doing it wrong.

That said, any debt should be paid off if it can be paid off. Nothing worse than the burden of knowing there is a lingering debt, especially that much.

I can't believe people on here are balking at 20-30k in student loan debt. IMO if you are graduating with that amount of debt (and you didn't have daddy pay for school) it's as a result of being careful.

I got accepted to MUCH more expensive schools, and despite my family's pressures to go there, I wanted to take the debt into account once I was graduating. Had I listened to them, I could have graduated with 100k+ in debt once those scholarships expired.

20k-30k in debt is the price of a new mid-size sedan for a 4 year technical degree. Is that really such a bad trade-off?

Also not everyone's in-state tuition is so great. In New Hampshire we have the highest in-state tuition of any state (last I checked) for UNH. I probably would've graduated with the same debt or more going to a state school!

I think a lot of adults are really out of touch with the costs of college. At my High School this was literally never mentioned. Guidance counselors pushed you to go to the best (read: the most expensive) schools you could possibly get accepted to. Whenever I would bring up cost they would tell me that I shouldn't worry about it, that my education was what was most important. I am so glad I didn't listen to everyone but I can't look down on people who didn't, because it seems everything in society pushes you toward that.

I also had to fight the Guidance counselors pretty hard to convince them to let me take Machining. They said it was a Foundations level course, and I was an Honors student so I didn't belong there, etc. I explained to them that it would be really relevant for me to have machining experience because I'm interested in becoming a mechanical engineer. It took weeks to convince them to do it, and even after that they would literally say snyde things like "I don't understand why you would do this." Well enough of my friends took the course we were actually able to get an augmented course load from our teacher with some more math to get it to qualify for an Honors course, and the two years of in-depth machining definitely helped us.

My plan is not to buy a new car (current car used-paid off) until my student loan is paid off. This is some nice incentive to do it quickly, and financially it's about an even swap in terms of monthly payments. Although I'll probably buy a much cheaper car with a shorter loan term

To the OP, I would suggest not completely eradicating your school loans. As long as you have discipline and also don't get stressed by the fact that you have some debt, there's no reason not to go for something in between. Look at your loan break-down, they are probably broken down into different groups (assuming any of them are federal). If there are any that are higher interest pay those off completely.

I would suggest maybe putting $5-15k to your student loans as long as you can actually remove some loan groups. Meaning it will lower your monthly payment by eliminating these loans. Then you can make higher payments to the remaining loans that will go towards a great portion of principal. There are a number of reason to keep that remaining cash. You might find a job opportunity in a location that requires you to relocate. You might found a house or condo that's an extremely good bargain. You might know someone starting a company that you really want to invest in.

 

[Jumpem]

I don't get how people accumulate that much in student loans. You have to ask yourself what the point of college is. The answer is: to get a job. Why do you want a job? To make money to live. If you go to college to get a job so you can pay for college, you're doing it wrong.

That said, any debt should be paid off if it can be paid off. Nothing worse than the burden of knowing there is a lingering debt, especially that much.

$20k is not much at all as far as student loans go.

 

[sze5003]

My parents always made it a point that I had to go to a state school so I did. Not everyone gets scholarships and sure as hell my parents never had any money to pay for my school. Even fafsa loans were not enough so I had to take out ones in my name. It was rough trying to find one too. My father took out a parent plus loan for me for for 40k but didn't realize it would be in his name after I was done. I'm paying that one off too in conjunction with the fafsa and my other private loan.

For me, it was the only way I could go to college and stupid parents wouldn't let me go to community which I probably should of done. But when I graduated I was the first one out of my class to get a job making 65k with full benefits. That lasted a year because it was a school contract and now I'm making a little less at another company but working with different technology. Actually with bonuses throughout the year and everything else it's more.

I see the idea of going to college to pay for college and unfortunately that is where my money goes. It sucks and I have several buddies who had parents that paid everything for their school and got them new cars when they graduated. Lucky them. Mine still ask for money to pay them back for stuff and everyone thinks I have so much money but never beliefs when I say I really dont. If I could do it over, I wouldn't have listened to my parents and probably went to community first or the military.

 

[wirednuts]

pay it all off in full, immediately. dont even consider paying more interest even if its a low rate. get rid of your debt. there is no better option.

 

[Red Squirrel]

$20k is not much at all as far as student loans go.

To put that in perspective that's more than what it cost to get someone dig up my entire foundation and lay new weeping tile and seal the walls. Thankfully I was able to put that with the mortgage as I had enough equity built up, but I can't imagine having to pay that off separately from the mortgage. That's a lot of money especially for someone coming out of college. I came out of college with no debt since I worked all my summers when I was in high school, and when I was in college I'd also get a summer job. My parents did help a bit, but because I was doing so well I ended up giving them part of it back at the end.

I'm just thinking of the expenses that went into my house when I first bought it, new furniture, etc... I can't imagine how I would have done it if I had some huge school debt on top of it all.

 

[sze5003]

To put that in perspective that's more than what it cost to get someone dig up my entire foundation and lay new weeping tile and seal the walls. Thankfully I was able to put that with the mortgage as I had enough equity built up, but I can't imagine having to pay that off separately from the mortgage. That's a lot of money especially for someone coming out of college. I came out of college with no debt since I worked all my summers when I was in high school, and when I was in college I'd also get a summer job. My parents did help a bit, but because I was doing so well I ended up giving them part of it back at the end.

I'm just thinking of the expenses that went into my house when I first bought it, new furniture, etc... I can't imagine how I would have done it if I had some huge school debt on top of it all.

Yeah which is why I don't have any new furniture yet. I hate using credit cards. Thank goodness I took what was left when I moved from my parents.

 

[Corporate Thug]

My parents always made it a point that I had to go to a state school so I did. Not everyone gets scholarships and sure as hell my parents never had any money to pay for my school. Even fafsa loans were not enough so I had to take out ones in my name. It was rough trying to find one too. My father took out a parent plus loan for me for for 40k but didn't realize it would be in his name after I was done. I'm paying that one off too in conjunction with the fafsa and my other private loan.

For me, it was the only way I could go to college and stupid parents wouldn't let me go to community which I probably should of done. But when I graduated I was the first one out of my class to get a job making 65k with full benefits. That lasted a year because it was a school contract and now I'm making a little less at another company but working with different technology. Actually with bonuses throughout the year and everything else it's more.

I see the idea of going to college to pay for college and unfortunately that is where my money goes. It sucks and I have several buddies who had parents that paid everything for their school and got them new cars when they graduated. Lucky them. Mine still ask for money to pay them back for stuff and everyone thinks I have so much money but never beliefs when I say I really dont. If I could do it over, I wouldn't have listened to my parents and probably went to community first or the military.

I have a 140k in student loans...the payments are ~$700/mo...I still manage to save 1k to 1.5k a month...it's not that bad.

 

[Jumpem]

To put that in perspective that's more than what it cost to get someone dig up my entire foundation and lay new weeping tile and seal the walls. Thankfully I was able to put that with the mortgage as I had enough equity built up, but I can't imagine having to pay that off separately from the mortgage. That's a lot of money especially for someone coming out of college. I came out of college with no debt since I worked all my summers when I was in high school, and when I was in college I'd also get a summer job. My parents did help a bit, but because I was doing so well I ended up giving them part of it back at the end.

I'm just thinking of the expenses that went into my house when I first bought it, new furniture, etc... I can't imagine how I would have done it if I had some huge school debt on top of it all.

I'm not saying that it isn't alot of money. I am saying that is not much when you consider state schools are $10k+ a year and private schoole ar $25-35k+. Then add room and board, and all of your living expenses on top of it.

Wife and I were a little over $70k when we graduated.